Suspect in shootings at N. Calif. farms was employee
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. • 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 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.
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 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 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.