The student who was beaten to death Wednesday in a Sacramento State University dormitory has been identified today as Scott Gregory Hawkins, 23, of Santa Clara.

Sacramento County coroner's deputies gave the ID this morning as students and faculty arrived at the university and awaited more information about the violence there that led Hawkins' death and the shooting by police of his alleged assailant.

The alleged assailant, 19-year-old Quran Jones, remains hospitalized.

University President Alexander Gonzalez and recently named campus police chief Dan Davis will be present at 9 a.m. news conference outside the American River Courtyard student housing to answer questions.

Davis, a former lieutenant on the force, was scheduled to be sworn in today as the new chief, but that ceremony has been canceled in light of the violence that shocked the campus Wednesday.

Hawkins was pronounced dead Wednesday afternoon. Late Wednesday, Jones was in stable condition, said Sgt. Joe Green of the university police department. He said Jones will be arrested and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on suspicion of murder and attempted murder of a police officer when he's released from the hospital.

Authorities today hope to shed light on what prompted the violent outburst Wednesday. Students said the two men were roommates in a five-person suite and had no known prior conflict.

"They were both nice kids," said Dustin Stumpf, who lived with Jones and the victim. "I don't know what happened. I was always nice to them and they were nice to me."

Stumpf said he was at baseball practice when the violence broke out.

"I'm not clear at all on what happened," he said. "One of my roommates got murdered and the other is in the hospital. I don't know the story."

The attack happened two months into the school year as students were preparing for midterms in a gleaming residence hall that was supposed to help transform Sacramento State from a sleepy commuter school into a more lively traditional campus.

Instead, the American River Courtyard dorm, with an aroma of new carpet and fresh paint in hues of gold, was transformed into a crime scene Wednesday. Police cars and news vans surrounded the building, hundreds of students loitered outside and yellow police tape blocked off a wing where the deadly incident took place.

It began shortly after 2 p.m. when campus police responded to a disturbance on the first floor of the American River Courtyard residence hall. They found Hawkins lying on the floor, said Dan Davis, chief of the CSUS police.

Another man in the room, whom police later identified as Jones, brandished a knife at police officers. University police shot him with a pepper ball gun, Davis said.

"It was not effective," Davis said. "The subject kept coming at the officers with the knife."

The officers then fired their guns at him, Davis said. He said he didn't know how many shots were fired.

Students in the area reported hearing between four and six shots.

Tsegay Arefaine, a 19-year-old resident of American River Courtyard, said he and his roommate left their room to investigate loud noises they heard coming from the first floor.

Downstairs, they saw a male student "breaking everything in his room," Arefaine said, and wielding what he thought was an aluminum bat.

"He was going nuts," Arefaine said of the student. "He was breaking the windows, the furniture; he was even hitting himself in the head with his own bat."

Arriving police officers told Arefaine and other students to leave the area, so they went into a study room in the building. From there, Arefaine said, he could see out the window and directly into Jones' room.

Arefaine said he saw the student push a table up against the door, barricading himself inside. Within a few minutes, they heard "five or six gunshots."

Standing outside Sacramento Police Department headquarters where he had been interviewed by detectives, Arefaine expressed disbelief over the day's tragedy.

"I'm shocked how he was just going crazy and then got shot – and twice as shocked he killed somebody," Arefaine said. "It's all pretty crazy."

Grief counselors were brought to campus Wednesday afternoon, and university officials were making arrangements for students who lived near the crime scene to switch rooms.

Gonzalez, the university president, held an afternoon news conference to assure the community that the campus was safe.

"This was a contained incident, and at this time, there (do) not appear to be any other suspects," he said. "Students have returned to their rooms in parts of the building not affected by the incident."

In an era of instant communication and cell phone alerts, some students say they were frustrated that the university did not notify them about the incident until after 4 p.m.

Call The Bee's Laurel Rosenhall, (916) 321-1083. The Bee's Chelsea Phua and Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.