Planned Attack on Florida Campus Halted by Fast Response

March 19--As news of the apparent suicide of a University of Central Florida student and the discovery of explosives and guns in his room spread around campus Monday morning, UCF freshman Victoria Colditz called her mother with concerns about returning to campus.

"I immediately texted my mom, my dad, stepfather, all the immediate family I could think of that would be worried about me," Colditz, a recent Seminole Ridge High School graduate said. "I called my mom a little later crying because I didn't want to go back to campus."

Authorities say that a UCF dropout planned an attack on campus but committed suicide in a dorm. Notes found in the room made it appear that 30-year-old James Oliver Seevakumaran planned a wider attack. Investigators said they found a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and an assault rifle with a 28-bullet magazine, traced to an Orlando gun store, and makeshift explosives in the room.

After pulling a fire alarm in Tower 1 shortly after midnight, Seevakumaran pulled a gun on a roommate. The roommate managed to get away and called police from a bathroom, UCF Police Chief Richard Beary said.

"His timeline got off," Beary said. "We think the rapid response of law enforcement may have changed his ability to think quickly on his feet."

Seevakumaran killed himself with a shot to the head moments later as police were responding to the call.

Beary said he believes that Seevakumaran pulled the fire alarm in the dorm to get other students out in the open for an attack.

The news left students and parents with ties to Palm Beach County shaken and voicing their concerns about safety on the campus of nearly 60,000 students.

"I couldn't believe it was right (there) in Orlando at the school my daughter goes to," said Colditz's mother, Angie Sweeney of West Palm Beach. "I was thrown back by it because you hear about happening in other colleges and you just don't think it's going to happen to yours."

Former Palm Beach Gardens High School softball standout Shelby Turnier, a freshman pitcher on the UCF softball team, said she and her teammates were returning from a road trip to Houston when they encountered the commotion on campus. Turnier said many members of the team live one floor about Seevakumaran's dorm room

"We got back about five minutes after it happened and were sent to a different area," she said. "There were a few cops with assault rifles, but there didn't seem to be too much going on. It was quiet. But it's so awful to think about it."

UCF senior Sarah Davis, a Lake Worth High School graduate, said the school sent out text message alerts and emails in the early morning hours notifying students that suspicious packages and devices had been found.

"It took them awhile to determine that there were explosives, or at least to let us know" she said.

Davis said she lives off-campus, but was still troubled by the incident.

"I'd say I'm definitely concerned because there's reports that he had several weapons and he lives in a dorm and the dorms have a lot more security," she said. "I'm more concerned for the victim because he obviously had mental health issues and he didn't get the help that he needed."

UCF spokesman Grant Heston said the university was in the process of removing Seevakumaran from the dorm before Monday. He was a business major enrolled from fall 2010 to fall 2012 as a transfer student from Seminole State college.

Seevakumaran's roommates told detectives that he had shown antisocial behavior but had never expressed any violent tendencies, Beary said.

According to Florida records, his only adult arrest in the state was in 2006 for driving with a suspended license. He pleaded no contest. He was fined $105 and assigned court costs of $223.

West Boca Raton High School graduate Amanda Held, a sophomore at UCF, was one of the students told to evacuate after the fire alarm went off.

"The fire alarm went off, the police and firetrucks came out, and they wouldn't let us back us in," Held, 19, said. "They told us it was a crime scene."

About 500 students were evacuated and morning classes were canceled.

Colditz, 19, said her dorm is about a 15-minute walk from where the shooting incident occurred.

"With all the incidents lately," she said, "I feel as though there nothing stopping things like this from happening again. ... What happened to UCF being a weapon-free campus?"

"It's a tragedy, but it's not an unspeakable tragedy," said UCF President John Hitt at an afternoon news conference. "A life was lost, but it was the life of the perpetrator."

Copyright 2013 - The Palm Beach Post, Fl