Gunman attacks Walmart facility, killing at least 2

RED BLUFF, Tehama County — At least two people were killed and four others were injured Saturday when a gunman drove into a distribution center and opened fire.

The victims were treated at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff, where they were in fair condition, spokeswoman Allison Hendrickson said. She declined to provide more details.

The shooting by a man with “ARtype weapon” started about 3:30 p.m. at a Walmart distribution center south of Red Bluff, emergency dispatchers told the Redding RecordSearchlight newspaper.

There also was a fire at the site, and the gunman appears to have rammed a vehicle into the building, dispatchers said. There were about 200 workers inside the facility, some of whom locked themselves in a room, employees at the center told KHSLTV.

The suspect was described as being in a white vehicle that had wedged into the building, the Sacramento Bee reported. The suspect was shot in the chest by about 3:45 p.m. and taken to a hospital.

Scott Thammakhanty, an employee at the facility’s receiving center, said he heard the gunman fire from a semiautomatic weapon.

“It went on and on — I don’t even know how many times he fired,” Thammakhanty said. “I just know it was a lot.” Thammakhanty and others started running for their lives, and he saw people lying on the ground as he fled.

Fellow employee Franklin Lister, 51, told the New York Times he had just started work when a coworker ran down the hallway shouting: “Active gunfire! Active shooter!”

Lister said he saw blood dripping from his colleague’s arm. “That’s when I realized it wasn’t a drill,” he said.

Lister and his team ran out the nearest fire exit. As they were running, he said, they heard 50 to 60 gunshots.

“To hear that much gunfire, it was frantic,” said Lister, who unloads deliveries that are then repackaged and shipped to Walmart stores. “People were running as fast as they could move.”

Dispatchers told the RecordSearchlight that one of the shooting victims was a woman. A man reported his leg getting run over when the shooter rammed the vehicle into the store. Walmart spokesman Scott Pope told the RecordSearchlight that the company is “aware of the situation” and working with law enforcement.