Seattle Pacific shooter was obsessed with Columbine

SEATTLE, Wash. (KGO) -- Classes were cancelled Friday at a Seattle-area university after a gunman opened fire on campus with deadly results, and new details have surfaced about the shooter's obsession with another campus rampage.

Classes and all evening events were cancelled at Seattle Pacific University, but faculty members are being asked to go to campus and make themselves available to students.

The suspect, 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra, was apparently obsessed with the Columbine school shooting. Police sources tell ABC7 News' sister station in Seattle that Ybarra even traveled to Colorado at one point to visit the school in person.

Heavily-armed police raided Ybarra's house in Mt. Lake Terrace Thursday night. Ybarra is suspected of shooting four people, killing one of them, a 19-year-old man. Police say Ybarra opened fire Thursday afternoon in a science building at Seattle Pacific University. They say he had a shotgun, extra shells and a knife and was "hell bent" on killing a lot of people.

A student building monitor stopped Ybarra, pepper spraying him as he reloaded his shotgun, and his heroic actions are not lost on the other students who were in harm's way. "I could have been one of these people that was injured or in critical condition. A lot of us were in that building. And he stopped him in the lobby. He didn't' get any further than that. I'm grateful for him, yeah," one student said.

Ybarra was not a student and it does not appear that he has any connection to the school or the victims. He's being held without bail on suspicion of murder.

The Seattle Times reports Ybarra has had a few minor encounters with police in the past, but nothing violent. A man who says he's a close friend tells the newspaper Ybarra was happy and friendly, and didn't drink or do drugs.