

LAPD officials said the two men arrested Friday in connection with the slayings of two USC graduate students were tied to the crime by forensic evidence.

At a news conference, Police Chief Charlie Beck declined to go into details but said police have linked the slayings, which stunned the USC campus, to other crimes police believe were committed by the pair.

Police identified the suspects as Bryan Barnes, 20, of Los Angeles, and Javier Bolden, 19 of Palmdale. They were expected to be booked into the 77th Street Division jail Friday night and held without bail.



Officials said they believe robbery was the motive behind the killings. They did not detail the other crimes that detectives believe are connected to the suspects.



Police said the pair do not have an extensive criminal record and are not recorded as gang members. But officials said they might have gang affiliations.

The arrests occurred Friday afternoon.

Dozens of detectives, plainclothes officers and members of the Police Department's SWAT unit descended on the 1200 block of 91st Street in South Los Angeles, residents said. They arrived suddenly but discreetly, disrupting a kids' game of kickball in the street and an ice cream truck that was trolling down the block, said a woman who declined to give her name.

"It was quiet, calm. We thought at first they were a crew filming 'Southland,' " the woman said, referring to the television drama about L.A. cops. She said she watched the operation unfold from her lawn.

SWAT officers entered the bright blue, two-story house, said the woman. They emerged soon after with a man in handcuffs and handed him off to other officers who led him to a waiting car, the woman said.

The woman, who said she has lived on the block for years, said she had never before seen the man, who had a medium build and appeared to be in his early 20s. Also taken into custody at the house was a 19-year-old woman who lives in one of the nearby apartments, the neighbor said.

Police sources declined to identify the man, saying only that he is thought to be the one who shot the students during a robbery. They did not give details on how investigators identified him, but one described the case against him as "very, very strong."

A police source who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said ballistics tests on shell casings recovered at the scene of the killings show they were fired from the same gun used in two other shootings.

Detectives working on the two previous shootings had followed some "very tenuous" leads that led them to believe the man taken into custody might have been involved, the source said. The source added that the man did not have an extensive criminal record.

The source said police knew the man had been in possession of something that "could very readily be tied to one of the victims."

The second man was taken into custody in the Antelope Valley a few hours after the first man, police sources said. He is accused of being present during the robbery. Police are planning to seek murder charges against both men, a source said.

Electrical engineering students Ming Qu and Ying Wu were sitting in a 2003 BMW about 1 a.m. April 11 when a gunman approached and shot two or three times into the driver's side. The two had been chatting, with the car double parked.

Property belonging to the two students was missing, leading investigators to suspect that robbery was the motive for the crime. Three neighbors heard the gunshots and called 911. Shortly after the shooting, a witness saw a person in dark clothing running from the scene, according to Deputy Chief Pat Gannon.