Couple are shot outside Costco

Gunman kills self after ambushing woman he dated, her boyfriend, at Chula Vista store.

A couple loading groceries into their car Monday afternoon at a Costco in Chula Vista, Calif., were shot several times by a gunman who then turned the weapon on himself in a deadly domestic violence ambush, police said.

The shooter died at a hospital, and the injured couple — a man and a woman — were in surgery about two hours after the shooting, Chula Vista Police Lt. Dan Peak said. The woman’s infant, who had been in a nearby stroller during the attack, was not injured.

The gunman had dated the woman he shot, Peak said, and the other victim was her current boyfriend.

Peak said that just before 1 p.m., the Police Department got calls that people had been shot in the Costco parking lot on Broadway near Naples Street.

Officers found three people down near a cluster of cars. All three were taken to a UC San Diego hospital. The shooter, whose name has not been released, died shortly before 2 p.m.

Police could not immediately say what may have sparked Monday’s shooting. Peak did confirm witness accounts that the gunman approached the victims from behind but was not able to confirm that the assailant had been lying in wait.

At least two witnesses said the gunman had placed a Gatorade bottle over the muzzle of the handgun in an apparent attempt to muffle the sound.

Chula Vista resident Angela Shelton said she was a passenger in a pickup truck that was backing out of a parking spot when she saw a woman clutching her chest. Shelton said she believed the woman was having a heart attack, and watched as a man went to help her.

Suddenly that man was shot, she said. She then looked on as a gunman approached the couple and fired repeatedly.

Shelton had initially got out of the truck when she believed the woman was having a heart attack, but when the shots were fired she quickly got back in. The pickup had bullet holes.

“I could have been shot too,” she said. “It’s very scary.”

Ricardo Esquivias, another Chula Vista resident, said he was walking in the parking lot toward the food court when he heard yelling.

“It was escalating, getting louder and louder,” he said. Then he heard four or five gunshots.

“I saw everybody running after that,” he said.

The shooting occurred three days after a fatal shooting at a Costco in Corona involving an off-duty Los Angeles police officer.