
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 28, 1994                   TAG: 9403280022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

COLLEGE MOURNS CARJACK VICTIMS

Flags at a tiny liberal arts college flew at half-staff Sunday for two students, one of them Japanese, who were critically wounded by a carjacker.

"It's such an appalling event. It's just very difficult for all of us to comprehend," said Janet Bremseth, co-director of college relations at Marymount College.

Takuma Ito and Go Matsuura, both 19, were shot in the head Friday night and were declared brain dead Sunday at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, said Dr. Curtis Doberstein.

The shootings focused new attention in Japan on violence in the United States, after the 1992 fatal shooting of 16-year-old Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori when he went to the wrong house looking for a Halloween party in Baton Rouge, La.

Ito, who is Japanese, and Matsuura, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Japan, were freshmen at Marymount, a secluded college on the affluent Palos Verdes Peninsula south of downtown Los Angeles.

Their families arrived from Japan on Sunday.

"He was dreaming of filmmaking, but he never The shootings focused new attention in Japan on violence in the United States, after the 1992 killing of a Japanese exchange student. dreamt of giving up his dream like this," Shuji Matsuura said of his son through an interpreter.

Marymount President Thomas McFadden expressed the school's condolences.

"Our community is devastated by this terrible tragedy," he said in a statement. "We have expressed our deepest sorrow to the students' families."

Flags on campus were at half-staff. The college's weeklong spring break began Friday.

Ito and Matsuura were shot as they got out of a car in a supermarket parking lot in the city's San Pedro area, police said. The gunman drove off in the car. Police said they had few leads.

School officials and friends said Ito and Matsuura shared a love of photography and were well-liked among the school's 750 full-time students.

"He's a wonderful guy and a good student," Ito's roommate, John Escandon, said outside a hospital after being turned away from visiting his friend.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB