(Trends Wide) — A series of back-to-back shootings has caused harrowing days in several US cities that now join a growing list of communities scarred by gun violence.
“Only in America do we see this kind of carnage, this kind of chaos, this kind of disruption to communities and lives, to trust and to a sense of safety and belonging,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. after his state suffered 3 mass shootings in just 3 days.
Newsom was still visiting victims of the Monterey Park, California shooting that claimed 11 lives when he was told of a second shooting to the north in Half Moon Bay. There, officials described the attack that killed seven as an apparent “act of violence in the workplace.”
“I feared two days ago that Monterey Park would give way to other headlines. I didn’t know it would be here,” Newsom said, speaking from Half Moon Bay. “Meanwhile, the trauma and damage of the devastation is felt for generations in some cases: communities are torn apart, no one feels safe.”
The mayor of Monterey Park, still reeling from the attack in his town, offered his condolences to the bereaved in Half Moon Bay. “I know what awaits you in the days ahead,” said Mayor Henry Lo.
Just hours later, five people were shot, including an 18-year-old who was killed, in a shooting in Oakland, California on Monday night.
Also Monday, in Des Moines, Iowa, a suspect opened fire at an educational program for at-risk youth, killing two students and critically wounding the program’s founder, police said.
Then, overnight, at least three people were killed in Yakima, Washington, when a man walked into a Circle K store and began shooting, according to police.
Those are just a few of the communities grieving after the recent acts of gun violence.
There have been 40 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, more mass shootings than at this point in any year on record, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organization and Trends Wide define a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.
Here are the latest key developments:
- In Half Moon Bay, court records obtained by Trends Wide show the suspect was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former co-worker and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013. The 66-year-old suspect is expected to years old to be arraigned Wednesday, Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Sean Gallagher told Trends Wide.
- In Monterey Park, the 11 people who died in the mass shooting have been identified. They were all between 50 and 70 years old.
- In Yakima, the suspect was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.
- In Des Moines, the suspect in the shooting has been charged with manslaughter.
Investigators and federal agents in the different cases are tracking firearms, serving search warrants, vetting suspects’ backgrounds and seeking motives. Here are the details of some of the most recent major shootings.
Half Moon Bay, California
Authorities say the suspect, identified as Chunli Zhao, killed seven people and wounded one in a mass shooting on Monday. Four people were shot at a mushroom farm, where the suspect was an employee, and three more were killed at a nearby farm, authorities said.
“All the evidence we have points to this being a case of workplace violence,” San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said.
Zhao was a “co-worker or former co-worker” of the victims at each shooting site, the sheriff’s office said.
The suspect, who was not known to local police before the shooting, possessed a semi-automatic weapon registered to her, the sheriff told Trends Wide on Tuesday.
The suspect had been charged with attempting to asphyxiate and threatening to kill a former coworker at another job nearly a decade ago, according to court records obtained by Trends Wide, which show he was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former coworker work and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013.
Monterey Park, California
Police officers patrol the area near the scene of a shooting that took place in Monterey Park. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Authorities still don’t know what prompted the Saturday night shooting at the Star Ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, which occurred as the city’s largely Asian community was celebrating Lunar New Year.
Investigators served a search warrant at the home of the alleged shooter, Huu Can Tran, 72, and found “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition, as well as evidence that led officials to believe he was “manufacturing firearm suppressors from home fires,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
The attacker fired 42 rounds from a semi-automatic pistol in the ballroom before heading to a second dance studio in nearby Alhambra, where a civilian attacked him and seized his weapon, Luna said.
Eleven people died and several more were injured.
The victims were identified by the coroner’s office as: Xiujuan Yu, 57; Hongying Jian, 62; Lilian Li, 63; MymyNhan, 65; Muoi Dai Ung, 67; and Diana Man Ling Tom, 70; Wen-Tau Yu, 64; Valentino Marcos Alvero, 68; Ming Wei Ma, 72; Yu-Lun Kao, 72, and Chia Ling Yau, 76.
Less than a day later, Tran was found dead inside a white pickup truck about 30 miles away in Torrance. The sheriff said he died after a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities said the suspect was familiar with the ballroom, but it’s unclear if he knew any of the victims.
Yakima, Washington
In Yakima, a man entered a Circle K store Tuesday night and opened fire, killing two people inside, then walked out of the store and shot and killed a third person as he left the scene, the police chief said. Matt Murray.
Police finally located the suspect Tuesday after receiving a call from a woman who had lent the suspect her phone and heard him make “various incriminating statements, including ‘I killed those people,'” Murray said during a news conference. .
Police responded and later announced that the suspect had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the chief.
The police department had previously identified the “suspected homicide suspect” as 21-year-old Jarid Haddock.
The motive behind the shooting remains under investigation, but Murray said the attack seemed “very random.”
Oakland, California
On Monday night in Oakland, between 40 and 50 people were filming a music video when “multiple gunshots erupted from multiple people with weapons in multiple directions,” acting Oakland Police Department Chief Darren Allison said during a conference call. press.
Officers received an alert from ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology and responded to the scene to find “some casings” but no victims. They later learned that multiple gunshot victims showed up at various area hospitals, Allison said.
A total of five people were shot, including an 18-year-old man who died. A driver and passengers were also injured when they collided while fleeing the scene, according to Allison.
The acting chief called it a “targeted shooting” and said investigators are “investigating the possibility of a gang or group connection to this incident.”
Des Moines, Iowa
Police officers outside a school housing an educational program after a shooting Monday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/AP)
On Monday afternoon, police and fire personnel in Des Moines responded to a report of a shooting at an educational program for at-risk youth.
They found three people with gunshot wounds, who were taken to hospitals. Two students, ages 18 and 16, died and the program founder was hospitalized in serious condition, authorities said.
The shooting suspect, 18-year-old Preston Walls, was charged with two counts of intentional homicide, attempted homicide and criminal gang involvement, police said in an updated statement.
Trends Wide has not been able to determine if Walls has retained legal counsel.
“The incident was definitely targeted,” Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said of the shooting. “It was not random. There is nothing random about this. It was definitely a targeted incident. But as to why, that’s something we’re going to try to determine.”
Trends Wide’s Taylor Romine, Veronica Miracle and Augie Martin contributed to this report.
(Trends Wide) — A series of back-to-back shootings has caused harrowing days in several US cities that now join a growing list of communities scarred by gun violence.
“Only in America do we see this kind of carnage, this kind of chaos, this kind of disruption to communities and lives, to trust and to a sense of safety and belonging,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. after his state suffered 3 mass shootings in just 3 days.
Newsom was still visiting victims of the Monterey Park, California shooting that claimed 11 lives when he was told of a second shooting to the north in Half Moon Bay. There, officials described the attack that killed seven as an apparent “act of violence in the workplace.”
“I feared two days ago that Monterey Park would give way to other headlines. I didn’t know it would be here,” Newsom said, speaking from Half Moon Bay. “Meanwhile, the trauma and damage of the devastation is felt for generations in some cases: communities are torn apart, no one feels safe.”
The mayor of Monterey Park, still reeling from the attack in his town, offered his condolences to the bereaved in Half Moon Bay. “I know what awaits you in the days ahead,” said Mayor Henry Lo.
Just hours later, five people were shot, including an 18-year-old who was killed, in a shooting in Oakland, California on Monday night.
Also Monday, in Des Moines, Iowa, a suspect opened fire at an educational program for at-risk youth, killing two students and critically wounding the program’s founder, police said.
Then, overnight, at least three people were killed in Yakima, Washington, when a man walked into a Circle K store and began shooting, according to police.
Those are just a few of the communities grieving after the recent acts of gun violence.
There have been 40 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, more mass shootings than at this point in any year on record, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organization and Trends Wide define a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.
Here are the latest key developments:
- In Half Moon Bay, court records obtained by Trends Wide show the suspect was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former co-worker and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013. The 66-year-old suspect is expected to years old to be arraigned Wednesday, Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Sean Gallagher told Trends Wide.
- In Monterey Park, the 11 people who died in the mass shooting have been identified. They were all between 50 and 70 years old.
- In Yakima, the suspect was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.
- In Des Moines, the suspect in the shooting has been charged with manslaughter.
Investigators and federal agents in the different cases are tracking firearms, serving search warrants, vetting suspects’ backgrounds and seeking motives. Here are the details of some of the most recent major shootings.
Half Moon Bay, California
Authorities say the suspect, identified as Chunli Zhao, killed seven people and wounded one in a mass shooting on Monday. Four people were shot at a mushroom farm, where the suspect was an employee, and three more were killed at a nearby farm, authorities said.
“All the evidence we have points to this being a case of workplace violence,” San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said.
Zhao was a “co-worker or former co-worker” of the victims at each shooting site, the sheriff’s office said.
The suspect, who was not known to local police before the shooting, possessed a semi-automatic weapon registered to her, the sheriff told Trends Wide on Tuesday.
The suspect had been charged with attempting to asphyxiate and threatening to kill a former coworker at another job nearly a decade ago, according to court records obtained by Trends Wide, which show he was subject to a temporary restraining order after a former coworker work and roommate accused him of attacking and threatening him in 2013.
Monterey Park, California
Police officers patrol the area near the scene of a shooting that took place in Monterey Park. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Authorities still don’t know what prompted the Saturday night shooting at the Star Ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, which occurred as the city’s largely Asian community was celebrating Lunar New Year.
Investigators served a search warrant at the home of the alleged shooter, Huu Can Tran, 72, and found “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition, as well as evidence that led officials to believe he was “manufacturing firearm suppressors from home fires,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
The attacker fired 42 rounds from a semi-automatic pistol in the ballroom before heading to a second dance studio in nearby Alhambra, where a civilian attacked him and seized his weapon, Luna said.
Eleven people died and several more were injured.
The victims were identified by the coroner’s office as: Xiujuan Yu, 57; Hongying Jian, 62; Lilian Li, 63; MymyNhan, 65; Muoi Dai Ung, 67; and Diana Man Ling Tom, 70; Wen-Tau Yu, 64; Valentino Marcos Alvero, 68; Ming Wei Ma, 72; Yu-Lun Kao, 72, and Chia Ling Yau, 76.
Less than a day later, Tran was found dead inside a white pickup truck about 30 miles away in Torrance. The sheriff said he died after a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities said the suspect was familiar with the ballroom, but it’s unclear if he knew any of the victims.
Yakima, Washington
In Yakima, a man entered a Circle K store Tuesday night and opened fire, killing two people inside, then walked out of the store and shot and killed a third person as he left the scene, the police chief said. Matt Murray.
Police finally located the suspect Tuesday after receiving a call from a woman who had lent the suspect her phone and heard him make “various incriminating statements, including ‘I killed those people,'” Murray said during a news conference. .
Police responded and later announced that the suspect had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the chief.
The police department had previously identified the “suspected homicide suspect” as 21-year-old Jarid Haddock.
The motive behind the shooting remains under investigation, but Murray said the attack seemed “very random.”
Oakland, California
On Monday night in Oakland, between 40 and 50 people were filming a music video when “multiple gunshots erupted from multiple people with weapons in multiple directions,” acting Oakland Police Department Chief Darren Allison said during a conference call. press.
Officers received an alert from ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology and responded to the scene to find “some casings” but no victims. They later learned that multiple gunshot victims showed up at various area hospitals, Allison said.
A total of five people were shot, including an 18-year-old man who died. A driver and passengers were also injured when they collided while fleeing the scene, according to Allison.
The acting chief called it a “targeted shooting” and said investigators are “investigating the possibility of a gang or group connection to this incident.”
Des Moines, Iowa
Police officers outside a school housing an educational program after a shooting Monday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/AP)
On Monday afternoon, police and fire personnel in Des Moines responded to a report of a shooting at an educational program for at-risk youth.
They found three people with gunshot wounds, who were taken to hospitals. Two students, ages 18 and 16, died and the program founder was hospitalized in serious condition, authorities said.
The shooting suspect, 18-year-old Preston Walls, was charged with two counts of intentional homicide, attempted homicide and criminal gang involvement, police said in an updated statement.
Trends Wide has not been able to determine if Walls has retained legal counsel.
“The incident was definitely targeted,” Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said of the shooting. “It was not random. There is nothing random about this. It was definitely a targeted incident. But as to why, that’s something we’re going to try to determine.”
Trends Wide’s Taylor Romine, Veronica Miracle and Augie Martin contributed to this report.
