LA police: 2 arrests in Chinese student killings

(CBS/AP) LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles police have arrested two young men in the killings of two Chinese graduate students who were shot to death near the University of Southern California campus last month.

Police Chief Charlie Beck says 19-year-old Javier Bolden and 20-year-old Bryan Barnes were arrested Friday for investigation of murder. He says Barnes was arrested at a home near campus Friday afternoon, Bolden was arrested a few hours later in Palmdale.

Beck says both are being held without bail.

He says the motive isn't completely clear, but the evidence points to a street robbery.

Ming Qu, of Jilin, and Ying Wu, of Hunan, were shot on April 11 while sitting in a BMW about a mile away from the campus. Both students were 23 years old.

The shooting sent shockwaves through the school, which has the largest number of international students of any U.S. university. Roughly 19 percent of the school's 38,000 students are from overseas, including 2,500 from China.

After the shooting, Wu was found in the passenger seat and Qu on the steps of a nearby house where he collapsed while trying to summon help, police said.

The campus is located in an urban center a few miles south of downtown. It is across the street from county museums and not far from the Staples Center arena and a gentrifying area of Victorian homes. Yet it also was known as an area that had faced high crime and gang activity.

The school and city police announced new security measures after the slayings and promised more video cameras, escorts and patrols.