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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 14-year-old girl held with four other teens after the beating of a University of Southern California graduate student has been charged with seven felonies in an unrelated Dockweiler Beach robbery that took place later that day, authorities said.
The girl, who was not named because of her age, faces charges including carjacking, second-degree robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday (http://lat.ms/1ouODbS ).
She was arrested July 24 at Dockweiler after two victims in the beach holdup called police.
It was that arrest that eventually led to the capture of four other teenagers — ages 16 to 19 — in connection with the beating death near the USC campus earlier in the day.
Those four were charged with murder in the death of 24-year-old Xinran Ji, a Chinese student who was studying engineering. The girl was not charged in the fatal beating.
Prosecutors said the grad student was hit with a baseball bat as he walked home from a study group during the early morning hours.
On Friday, USC announced a series of new security measures in the wake of last month's beating. The university said it was increasing security in and around the campus, upgrading camera systems and enhancing security training for students.
In 2012, two USC students from China were fatally shot during an off-campus robbery also during the early morning.
USC has the highest number of international students in the country, with more than 40 percent of them coming from China.
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Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com
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