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Suspects in USC shooting behind bars

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Two suspects in the shooting deaths of two USC graduate students from China have been arrested.

Los Angeles police and federal agents arrested Bryan Barnes, 20, in an apartment on West 91st Street and Javier Bolden, 19, in Palmdale on Friday.

Both men were booked into the Los Angeles Police Department’s jail at the 77th Street Station, where they were being held without bail pending arraignment.

“I am proud of my investigators who worked tirelessly on this case,” police Chief Charlie Beck said at a Friday evening news conference. “This was a case that reverberated throughout Los Angeles as well as internationally. This was a case that needed to be solved.”

Shells found near where Ming Qu and Ying Wu were shot to death April 11 linked the two suspects to two attempted homicides, police sources told The Los Angeles Times. No other information about those crimes was made public.

Barnes was believed to have been the shooter, The Times reported. Barnes was found, in part, because police were able to trace a cellular telephone stolen at the time of the slayings to him, police sources told The Times.

USC President C.L. Max Nikias expressed his gratitude for the arrests.

“(Police) shared our outrage at this senseless and singular act and worked passionately to reach a resolution,” Nikias said.

The victims, both 23-year-old electrical engineering students, were sitting in Qu’s double-parked, 2003 BMW in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue during a downpour when they were set upon about 1 a.m.

Wu was found in the passenger seat, and Qu, who apparently tried to run for help, was found on the steps of a nearby home.

The parents of the slain students filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against USC on Wednesday. It claims USC “actively solicits international students particularly from China for its graduate studies program for which it receives a substantial sum of money from tuition to help fund the university.” The lawsuit says USC’s website calls the university “among the safest of U.S. universities and colleges, with one of the most comprehensive, proactive campus and community safety programs in the nation.”

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