The gunman who killed four people and critically wounded a fifth at a Southern California office building knew all the victims and apparently before opening fire chained shut the gates to two entrances, delaying police from getting inside, authorities said.
“Our hearts today go out to the victims, and I’m here to tell you that we’re going to do everything in our power in the Orange county district attorney’s office to get justice for these families,” Spitzer said. He said he will consider seeking the death penalty.
The violence in the city of Orange was the nation’s third major mass shooting in just over two weeks. Last week a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, and killed 10. A week before that, six Asian women were among eight people killed at three Atlanta-area spas.
The suspect in the California shooting was identified as Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44. He was critically wounded. It was unclear whether he suffered a self-inflicted wound or was shot by police.
Gonzalez knew all the victims either personally or through business, police said. They said the precise relationships were still being determined. No names of the victims were officially released.
However, a family member identified one victim as Luis Tovar, 50, who owned Unified Homes, a mobile home brokerage company.
Gonzalez was from nearby Fullerton but was driving a rental car and staying at a motel in Anaheim, which borders Orange and is southeast of Los Angeles. Police say he placed bicycle locks on two entrances to a two-story building that houses a variety of businesses.
The shooting occurred around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, and police said Gonzalez targeted people at Unified Homes. Police released a still image from a security video showing the gunman inside the business wearing a bandana, brandishing a semiautomatic handgun and with a backpack that police said contained ammunition, pepper spray and handcuffs.
Once inside, they found the victims and wounded the gunman. The incident was over within several minutes, Amat said.
Gonzalez was charged in 2015 in Orange County with cruelty to a child and other counts. It’s not clear if the child was his. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanour battery and served one day in jail. All other counts were dismissed, and the conviction was expunged in 2017, said Lauren Gold, spokeswoman for the city of Anaheim.
Orange is about 30 miles (48 kilometres) from Los Angeles and home to about 140,000 people. The shooting was the worst in the city since December 1997, when a gunman armed with an assault rifle attacked a California department of transportation maintenance yard.
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