California gunfire deadly
4 people fatally shot in rural town before police kill gunman.
RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. — A gunman driving stolen vehicles and choosing his targets at random in a rural Northern California town killed four people and wounded at least 10 others, including a student at an elementary school, before police fatally shot him, authorities said.
The rampage began shortly before 8 a.m. when the gunman fatally shot a neighbor he had been accused of stabbing in January, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.
Shortly afterward, the gunman rammed through the gate of Rancho Tehama Elementary School about 2 miles away and spent about six minutes shooting into the building, striking at least one student, Johnston said.
Surveillance video showed the gunman, who was not identified, trying to enter the school, authorities said.
School officials’ swift decision to lock the doors after hearing gunfire was “monumental” in saving the lives of countless children, Johnston said. No one was killed there.
The gunman left the school after he could not get inside and purposely crashed the stolen truck he was driving into another vehicle and shot at its occupants, Johnston said.
The shooter then stole the car of a person who stopped to check on the crash but ran away when confronted with a gun. He continued the rampage until police shot him about 45 minutes after it started, Johnston said.
He said authorities believe they know the identity of the shooter but declined to release his name pending further investigation.
Police offered no immediate word on the assailant’s motive, but a sheriff’s official said the shooter’s neighbors had reported a domestic-violence incident a day earlier. Officials did not specify who was involved or what happened.
Brian Flint told the Record Searchlight newspaper in Redding that his neighbor, whom he knows only as Kevin, was the gunman and that his roommate was among the victims.
“The crazy thing is that the neighbor has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines,” Flint said. “We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he’s been threatening us.”
A semi-automatic rifle and two handguns were recovered after sheriff’s deputies shot and killed the gunman. “I have to tell you I am personally grateful to the men who engaged this suspect,” Johnston said.
Salvador Tello said the gunman fired at a truck in front of him as he was dropping off his three children. Tello said he was about three blocks from the school when bullets made “big holes” in the truck in front of him.
He said he got his children to duck and slammed his truck into reverse and headed to the children’s grandmother’s house.
“I put my kids down and put my truck in reverse and went out,” he said.
Johnston said officials received multiple 911 calls about gunfire at an intersection of two dirt roads in the upper reaches of the sparsely populated neighborhood. Minutes later, more calls reporting shots fired flooded in from different locations, including the elementary school.
“It was very clear at the onset that we had an individual that was randomly picking targets,” Johnston said.
Nearby residents and business owners said they heard at least 100 gunshots.
“I thought this only happens to places like LA or New York,” Jose Garcia, owner of La Fortune Convenience, told the Los Angeles Times.
The shootings occurred in the rural community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, a homeowners association of modest houses and trailers in rolling oak woodlands dotted with grazing cattle about 130 miles north of Sacramento.