UCF roommate speaks out about gunman who plotted attack
The roommate who called police for help after a former University of Central Florida student pulled a gun on him said the 30-year-old was anti-social, but had no idea he could potentially be dangerous.
James Oliver Seevakumaran, 30, killed himself before authorities got to him at his dorm room in Tower 1 Monday, where they found guns, explosives and a note that detailed a campus shooting.
Arabo Babakhani, a man identifying himself as Seevakumaran's roommate, told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassman about how he came face-to-face with the gunman and ran to call 911.
"If you said anything to him or walked by him or anything, he would just ignore you," Babakhani said. "He would stare off into the distance and pretend like you never existed. He only made eye contact with me when he pulled the gun on me."
Before he killed himself, Seevakumaran had pulled the fire alarm - a strategy, police said, to get students all in one place. Babakhani said a third student who lived with them was out of town in Baltimore, while the fourth evacuated the building as soon as he heard the fire alarm.
In an phone interview with the student paper, the Knightly News,Babakhani explained how he went into the kitchen because he thought the fire alarm was triggered by something burning. As soon as he saw the gun, he ran into his room, crouching in front of a chest of drawers.
Before the incident, however, Babakhani said he had no reason to suspect James was violent. He never closed his door.
But he said there was always something weird about him.
"For Thanksgiving ... he didn't invite anyone," Babakhani told the paper. "He just cooked a whole Thanksgiving meal for himself. He's got no friends, I don't even know if he's got any family. I've never heard him on a cell phone before."
Seevakumaran was a business major at the school. He wasn't enrolled for the Spring semester.