California gunman who killed 4 was out on bail

RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. — The gunman behind a ram page in Northern California was out on bail charged with stabbing a neighbour, others had complained about him firing hundreds of rounds from his house, and he had been the subject of a domestic violence call the day before the attack.

Yet Kevin Neal was free and able to use a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns Tuesday to shoot 14 people, killing four, in seven different locations across his rural community, including an elementary school, before he died in a shootout with police. It’ s not yet clear what the terms of Neal’ s bail were, and whether he would have been allowed to possess and fire the weapons on his property at the end of a dirt road in Rancho Tehama Reserve. Nor did sheriff’s officials give details on the domestic violence call.

But his many contacts with authorities raised questions of why he was out of custody and able togo on the 45- minute ram page that began with the killing of two neighbours in an apparent act of revenge before he went looking for random victims.

Cristal Caravez and her father live across a ravine from the roadway where the gunman and his first victims lived.

She said they and others heard constant gun fire from the area of the gunman’ s house, but couldn’ t say for sure it was him firing.

“You could hear the yelling. He’d go off the hinges,” she said. The shooting ,“it would be during the day, during the night, I mean, it didn’ t matter.”

She and her father, who is president of the homeowners association, said neighbours would complain to the sheriff’ s department, which referred the complaints back to the homeowners association.