Police say Fla. college student plotted attack

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A college student with two guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a backpack filled with explosives pulled a dorm fire alarm yesterday, apparently to try to force other students out into the open so he could slaughter them, authorities said. Instead, he put a bullet in his head as police closed in.

James Oliver Seevakumaran, 30, was found dead in his dorm room at the 51,000-student Orlando campus of the University of Central Florida. No one else was hurt.

"His timeline got off," university Police Chief Richard Beary said. "We think the rapid response of law enforcement may have changed his ability to think quickly on his feet."

The building was evacuated of 500 students in the middle of the night, the students unaware how narrowly they had escaped what could have been a Virginia Tech-style bloodbath.

"It could have been a very bad day here for everybody. All things considered, I think we were very blessed here," Beary said.

Police shed no light on a motive, but university spokesman Grant Heston said the school had been in the process of removing Seevakumaran from the dormitory because he hadn't enrolled for the current semester. He had never been seen by university counselors and he had no disciplinary problems with other students, Heston said.

Detectives found notes and other writings that indicated Seevakumaran had carefully planned an attack and "laid out a timeline of where he was going to be and what he was going to do," Beary said.

It was just after midnight when Seevakumaran pulled a gun on one of his roommates, who holed up in a bathroom and called police, Beary said. Around the same time, Seevakumaran pulled the fire alarm, the police chief said.