Beloved Suspects in Double Slaying of Chinese USC Grad Students are “Party Boys”; Cops: They’d been Shooting People, Left and Right; Suspect’s Mom:

“Good Kid [Finally] Getting His Bearings”
By David in TN

According to the Los Angeles Times, the two suspects in the killings of two Chinese USC grad students are "party boys."

Their Facebook pages look like the one belonging to a certain deceased individual much in the news in recent months.

Bryan Barnes and Javier Bolden were charged Tuesday with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of electrical engineering students Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23.

At a December party in South L.A. in December, police say, they pulled out guns and opened fire, wounding a man. Then in February, Barnes is alleged to have fired numerous rounds at another party, severely wounding a man and injuring a woman.

LAPD Deputy Chief Pat Gannon said that shell casings found at these two parties matched the ones found in the street where the two USC students were killed. Both had only "minor" juvenile records before what the Times calls a "botched robbery." [N.S.: They weren’t known to have succeeded at murdering anyone yet.]

Bolden's mother calls him a "good kid." He was on probation for a year until it was ended in June 2011, when "he finally appeared to be getting his bearings."

In addition to the party connections, signals from a cell phone stolen from one of the victims helped detectives locate the suspects.

"In the downtown courthouse Tuesday, a circle of family and friends of the defendants joined hands and prayed. Barnes and Bolden appeared briefly in court and agreed to postpone their arraignment until June 25. As the hearing ended, a woman in the gallery yelled out: "I love you, bro."