US mass shooting: Suspect in shootings at Northern California farms was employee

Police tape from the San Mateo Country Sheriffs office marks the perimeter of the scene of a shooting, after a gunman killed several people at two agricultural businesses in California. Photo / AP

An agricultural worker killed seven people in back-to-back shooting sprees at two mushroom farms that had employed him in Northern California and the massacre is believed to be a “workplace violence incident,” officials said on Tuesday as the state mourned its third mass killing in eight days.

Officers arrested a suspect in Monday’s shootings, 66-year-old Chunli Zhao, after they found him in his car in the parking lot of a sheriff’s substation, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said.

Seven people were found dead, and an eighth wounded, at the farms on the outskirts of the coastal community of Half Moon Bay, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The sheriff’s office said seven of the victims were men and one was a woman. Some were Asian and others were Hispanic, and some were migrant workers.

“All of the evidence we have right now points to a workplace violence incident,” said Eamonn Allen, a spokesman with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. He said that Zhao used a semi-automatic handgun that was legally purchased and owned.

Multiple people were killed in two related shootings on Monday at a mushroom farm and a trucking firm in a coastal community south of San Francisco. Photo / AP

Allen said that Zhao he went in shooting at Mountain Mushroom Farm, where he worked, killed four people and then went to a farm where he used to work and killed another three.

Aerial television images on Monday showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses, which appeared to be the location where police found four dead. On Tuesday morning, police continued to block off the location.

California was still reeling on Tuesday from an attack on a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, just outside Los Angeles, that killed 11 and cast a shadow over an important holiday for many Asian-American communities. Authorities are still seeking a motive for the Saturday shooting.

“For the second time in recent days, California communities are mourning the loss of loved ones in a senseless act of gun violence,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday morning. “Even as we await further details on these shootings, we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action.”

The new year has brought six mass killings in the US in fewer than three weeks, accounting for 39 deaths. Three have occurred in California since January 16, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The database tracks every mass killing — defined as four dead not including the offender — committed in the US since 2006.

On January 16, a teenage mother and her baby were among six people killed in a shooting at a home in California’s Central Valley. Officials discussing the investigation mentioned a possible gang link to the killings.

Half Moon Bay Vice Mayor Joaquin Jimenez said the victims of Monday’s attack included Chinese and Latino farmworkers. Some workers lived at one of the facilities and children may have witnessed the shooting, she said.

The Sheriff’s Office first received reports of a shooting Monday afternoon and found four people dead and a fifth wounded at the first scene. Officers then found three more people fatally shot at a second farm nearby, Allen said.

Sheriff's deputies talk with people at the scene of a deadly shooting where several fatalities occurred off state Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Photo / AP

About two hours later, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Zhao’s car parked outside a sheriff’s substation in a strip mall and arrested him.

“He did not actively surrender to us,” Allen told a news conference on Tuesday, declining to answer a question on why Zhao had driven to the sheriff substation.

A video of the arrest showed three officers approaching a parked car with drawn weapons. Zhao got out of the car, and the officers pulled him to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and led him away. A weapon was found in his vehicle, officials said. The video was captured by Kati McHugh, a Half Moon Bay resident who witnessed the arrest.

The sheriff’s department believes Zhao acted alone.

“We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened and why, but it’s just incredibly, incredibly tragic,” said state Senator Josh Becker, who represents the area and called it “a very close-knit” agricultural community.

Half Moon Bay is a small coastal city with agricultural roots, home to about 12,000 people, about 50km south of San Francisco. The surrounding San Mateo County is a mixture of coastal cities and hills dotted with farms, including floral and tree nurseries as well as ranches. The county also allows cannabis to be grown in greenhouses and at nurseries in some areas.

It’s a majority-white community. About a third of the population is Latino and about 5 per cent is Asian, according to Census data.

“We are sickened by today’s tragedy in Half Moon Bay,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine said. “We have not even had time to grieve for those lost in the terrible shooting in Monterey Park. Gun violence must stop.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that he was “at the hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I get pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay. Tragedy upon tragedy.”