I asked whom he called, and Goh said: “I called my father and told him that I had shot a lot of people. Early police reports never specified what happened after the shooting, when Goh went to the Safeway near the school, though there was agreement that he walked inside and asked to used the phone at the customer-service desk. Goh nodded but didn’t make a move to hang up the phone. He said his lawyer had instructed him to not talk to anyone about the case. In his measured, raspy voice, Goh said, “I have not seen my father since - ” before trailing off into something inaudible. I told him - truthfully, though it was more complicated than this - that I was planning to write a book about school shootings and wanted to ask him about his life. He said he had come down to the visitation area because he was expecting to see his father. ![]() On a couple of occasions, he appeared to be on the verge of tears. He said yes.ĭuring the conversation that ensued, Goh repeatedly rubbed his face with the heel of his palm. When I reached for the receiver on my side of the glass, he picked up his end. He stared ahead with dark, small eyes and waited for me to settle in my seat. He watched as I sat at his booth, but his face registered nothing. I walked in with the other visitors, checking each stall, until I saw a dumpy Korean man with thick eyebrows and heavy jowls. He wasn’t there.Ī buzzer went off, and the heavy door to the visitation area swung open. Now as I waited, I routinely stood up to peek into those windows to see if he had shown up. A young woman held an infant up to the window and cooed, “Say hello to Daddy.” Two days after the shooting, I sent Goh a letter written in Korean explaining who I was and that I would be there on Saturday. On a wooden bench near the check-in desk, two older men talked about how the word “correctional” meant that the prisoners were supposed to come out as better people. At a far window, an elderly Vietnamese woman waved fondly at her son. The prisoners take their spots before the doors open, so if you stand by one of the hallway windows, you can see rows of men waiting for their visitors. The visitation area consists of a series of stalls equipped with a phone on either side of a glass partition. Goh then climbed into Bhutia’s car and drove to a Safeway in the nearby city of Alameda, where he ultimately surrendered to police.įive days later, I went to see Goh at the Santa Rita jail in Dublin, Calif., 25 miles south of Oakland. ![]() He killed six people and wounded three others, then exited the building and shot and killed Tshering Bhutia, a former classmate, in the school’s parking lot. Goh walked into Oikos University in Oakland, Calif., with a. On April 2 last year, a 43-year-old former nursing student named One L.
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