Wu and Qu, who police say were believed to have been dating, were killed when a gunman opened fire on them while they were sitting in a BMW outside Wu’s apartment early Wednesday, just after midnight. Police said it may have been a robbery or carjacking attempt.

The driver, Qu, was able to make it from the car, through the rain, to a house where he pounded on the door pleading for help.

Both were dead by the time they got to the hospital,

Both victims were graduate students studying electrical engineering. Their hometowns were not immediately released and messages left for the Chinese consulate were not immediately returned.

Votive candles in the shape of a heart and white roses and lilies sat at the foot of the Tommy Trojan statue, the university’s collegiate symbol, where grieving students dressed mainly in black and faculty gathered for the vigil.

The slayings shook the campus, which has a large international student population, and laid bare a parent’s worst nightmare: having their child harmed in a faraway place.

At USC, the international student presence is enormous — it has the largest number of any university in the U.S. Roughly 19 percent of the school’s 38,000 students are from overseas, including 2,500 from China.

And some students said the shooting could be a cautionary tale for others who want to study overseas.

“If parents hear about this in China, it might affect their decision,” said Chrissy Yao, a Chinese-American who moved to the U.S. when she was 10 and is a senior engineering student. “Since two lives were lost, I think concerns will remain for quite a while.”

Hours after the shooting, daisies, gladiolas and calla lilies sat next to a small table on the walkway of the home to which Qu ran for help. On the table was a remembrance book with a sign that read: “We will give this book to the parents of Ying Wu and Ming Qu. Write here in English or Chinese if you would like to share your thoughts with them.”

Gloria Tigolo lives on the tree-lined street of two-story homes and apartment buildings and said she heard a gunshot. She said she went downstairs but didn’t go outside because it was raining.

Investigators said earlier that several shots were fired at the couple.

Four people have been killed this year in the area, police said, but violent crime in the area is down 20 percent this year. Neighborhood watch signs are posted along the street and police were trying to determine if there are any surveillance cameras in the area.

The gunman fled on foot, and no description has been yet released by authorities.

Jessie Cai, 21, is an undergraduate student in electrical engineering and an international student from China who lives in the West Adams neighborhood. Cai said she is shaken over the shooting and is thinking of moving out of the area as a result.

“I do worry because we get a lot of crime alerts but we never actually catch the criminals,” she said. She said she hasn’t told her parents about the shooting yet, but she is sure “they will be freaking out” about it.

USC is in an urban center within a mile of gang-infested neighborhoods that have been plagued by high crime. The last time a USC student was killed was in September 2008 when Bryan Frost, 23, of Eagle, Idaho, was fatally stabbed by a former usher at USC football games. Travion Ford was sentenced to 16 years to life after being convicted of second-degree murder. The two men were involved in an off-campus altercation.

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Associated Press Writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer contributed to this report.

The slayings shook the campus, which has a large international student population, and laid bare a parent’s worst nightmare: having their child harmed in a faraway place.

At USC, the international student presence is enormous — it has the largest number of any university in the U.S. Roughly 19 percent of the school’s 38,000 students are from overseas, including 2,500 from China.

And some students said the shooting could be a cautionary tale for others who want to study overseas.

“If parents hear about this in China, it might affect their decision,” said Chrissy Yao, a Chinese-American who moved to the U.S. when she was 10 and is a senior engineering student. “Since two lives were lost, I think concerns will remain for quite a while.”

Police said the shooting occurred around 1 a.m. and may have been a robbery or a carjacking attempt. Witnesses said the car was in the roadway, not at the curb, at the time of the shooting.

Later Wednesday, bouquets of roses, daisies, gladiolas and calla lilies sat next to a small table on the walkway of the home to which Qu ran for help. On the table was a remembrance book with a sign that read: “We will give this book to the parents of Ying Wu and Ming Qu. Write here in English or Chinese if you would like to share your thoughts with them.”

Gloria Tigolo lives on the tree-lined street of two-story homes and apartment buildings and said she heard a gunshot. She said she went downstairs but didn’t go outside because it was raining.

Investigators said earlier that several shots were fired at the couple.

Four people have been killed this year in the area, police said, but violent crime in the area is down 20 percent this year. Neighborhood watch signs are posted along the street and police were trying to determine if there are any surveillance cameras in the area.

Tigolo said she would often see Wu, 23, in the neighborhood, wearing dark sunglasses but rarely saw her drive.

Qu managed to get out of the car and run to a nearby home, where he pounded on the door, police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. It wasn’t known if anyone answered the door before the man collapsed. Qu would have celebrated his 24th birthday on Thursday.

The gunman fled on foot, and no description has been yet released by authorities.

Jiewen Zhu, a 24-year-old financial engineering graduate student from northern China, said she called her mother after hearing the news of the shooting.

“I just left a message to tell her I am fine, I’m OK — I just don’t want them to worry,” she said. “This is really bad that it happened to us and our students, but I didn’t feel so threatened.”

Jessie Cai, 21, is an undergraduate student in electrical engineering and an international student from China who lives in the West Adams neighborhood. Cai said she is shaken over the shooting and is thinking of moving out of the area as a result.

“I do worry because we get a lot of crime alerts but we never actually catch the criminals,” she said. She said she hasn’t told her parents about the shooting yet, but she is sure “they will be freaking out” about it.

USC is in an urban center within a mile of gang-infested neighborhoods that have been plagued by high crime. The last time a USC student was killed was in September 2008 when Bryan Frost, 23, of Eagle, Idaho, was fatally stabbed by a former usher at USC football games. Travion Ford was sentenced to 16 years to life after being convicted of second-degree murder. The two men were involved in an off-campus altercation.

Nearly 35 percent of the school’s 7,226 international students are Chinese, according to the university’s 2011 figures. In addition to China, 17.5 percent of USC’s international students are from India, 10 percent from South Korea, 5.5 percent from Taiwan, 4.4 percent from Canada, 2.3 percent from Iran and just above 2 percent each from Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Just as Chinese students are the largest segment at USC, they comprise nearly one-fourth of the nearly 724,000 international students attending colleges and universities in the U.S.

In recent years, they have helped fuel record international student enrollment on U.S. campuses.

The types of students who come from abroad tend to skew wealthier because they often have less access to financial aid and must foot more of the bill themselves. With China’s economic boom, more families can now afford to send their children overseas.

Both victims were graduate students studying electrical engineering. Their hometowns were not immediately released and messages left for the Chinese consulate were not immediately returned.

Yao, the senior engineering student, said she hopes that campus police could expand their patrol areas near the campus to provide better safety for students.

The West Adams district, where the shooting took place, has seen some revitalization.

Beatriz Moreno, who lives across the street with her family from where the shooting occurred, said the neighborhood has been cleaned up. She said the last shooting she could remember on her street was in 2003.

“We used to see this every day,” she said. “There are mostly families here. This is not normal.”

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Associated Press Writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer contributed to this report.

“The bottom line is that he did nothing illegal,” said Doug Elliott, who runs the state’s largest catfish farm. “They’ve chosen this issue to maybe rid the commission of a conservative voice. This has been blown way out of proportion.”

Richards, a Republican commercial real estate developer, has maintained he will not step down from his appointed position, despite efforts to remove him by 40 members of the state Assembly, the lieutenant governor and animal rights activists.

Richards was lambasted by critics over a photo that shows him with a mountain lion he shot during a January visit to Idaho. Hunting mountain lions is legal in Idaho and other states but banned in California.

Richards, who declined to comment about the issue during a break, said he appreciated the turnout that had differing opinions and good dialogue.

A few people who spoke out against Richards said he used poor judgment posing for a photo with the dead cougar and did a disservice to Californians who have twice voted down statewide efforts to reinstate mountain lion hunting.

“What he did was legal, but he’s supposed to at least look like he supports the will of the people of California,” said Robin Parks of the Mountain Lion Foundation. “What he’s done is poked his finger in the eyes of Californians.”

Richards also has caught flak for some of the comments he made following the dustup. He noted that he ate what he shot, and during a radio interview on a Los Angeles conservative talk show said it tasted more like pork loin than chicken.

The Humane Society of the United States asked supporters to not attend the commission meeting, saying it wasn’t the forum to debate the issue. The organization has called for lawmakers to remove Richards from his post.

“The doubts about Dan Richards’ ability to lead the Fish and Game Commission grow by the day, not only because of his guided mountain lion hunt in Idaho, but also his severe mishandling of the criticism directed his way,” said the society’s senior state director Jennifer Fearing.

Richards also faces an ethics complaint alleging he illegally accepted a $6,800 gift from a ranch on the Idaho trip. Under California law, officials can’t accept gifts valued at more than $420 a year.

Joseph Peterson, manager of the Flying B Ranch in Idaho where the hunting occurred, said he asked Richards to shoot the mountain lion as part of an effort to control the population of the animals at the site.

Fellow commission member Jim Kellogg said he was contacted by some lawmakers who wondered if they should support an effort to have Richards step down. Kellogg advised against it.

“My message is, he who is without sin cast the first stone,” said Kellogg, who noted he has hunted out of state and been urged to shoot wolves. “Having done that, and if I do as of this meeting, you won’t see no picture of me.”