Suspect in northern California shootings that killed 7 was employee at one of the locations

A farm worker killed seven people at the farm where he worked and at another business in northern California, sending the state into mourning again after the third mass killing in eight days.

Officers arrested the suspect in the shootings on Friday, Chunli Zhao 67-year-old, after they found him in a car in the parking lot of the sheriff’s station, said San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus.

Seven people were found dead and an eighth injured at the farm and another location several kilometers away, the sheriff’s office said. Officials have suspected that the shooter worked at one of the facilities and that the victims were also workers, Corpus said. They have not determined a motive for the shooting.

San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus confirmed Tuesday that Zhao was an employee at Mountain Mushroom Farm. He said the only known connection between the shooter and the victims was that “they may have been co-workers.”

Some of the victims were migrant workers

The sheriff’s office said seven victims were male and one female. Some are Asian and others are Hispanic, and some are migrant workers.

Aerial television images showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses, which appears to be the location where police found four dead. On Tuesday morning, the police continued to block the location.

California is still reeling Tuesday from an attack on a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California, that killed 11 and cast a shadow over an important holiday for many Asian American communities. Authorities are still looking for a motive in Saturday’s shooting.

“For the second time in recent memory, California communities are reeling from the loss of a loved one to gun violence,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday morning. “While we await more details about the shooting, we know that gun violence in America calls for stronger action.”

And on January 16, a teenage mother and her baby were among six people killed in a shooting at a home in California’s Central Valley. Officials discussing the investigation have raised the possibility of gang ties to the murder.

The new year has brought six mass murders in the US in less than three weeks, resulting in 39 deaths. Three have occurred in California since Jan. 16, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The database tracks every mass murder — defined as four deaths excluding the offender — committed in the U.S. since 2006.

Children may have witnessed the shooting

The latest shooting happened on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, a town about 48 kilometers south of San Francisco.

Half Moon Bay Vice Mayor Joaquin Jimenez said the victims included Chinese and Latino farm workers. Some workers live in one of the facilities and children may have witnessed the shooting, he said.

Corpus said it was not immediately clear how the two locations were connected.

The sheriff’s office first received reports of the shooting that evening and found four people dead and a fifth wounded at the first scene. Officers later found three other people who had been shot to death, Capt. Eamonn Allen said in a news release.

About two hours later, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Zhao’s car parked outside the sheriff’s station at the mall and arrested him.

Video of the arrest shows three officers approaching a parked car with weapons drawn. Zhao got out of the car, and officers pulled him to the ground, handcuffed him, and took him away. A weapon was found in his vehicle, officials said. The video was taken by Kati McHugh, a Half Moon Bay resident who witnessed the arrest.

The sheriff’s department believes Zhao acted alone.

‘It’s tragic’

“We are still trying to understand exactly what happened and why, but it’s just incredible, incredibly tragic,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the area and is called “very close” agricultural community.

Half Moon Bay is a small coastal town with agricultural roots, home to about 12,000 people. The surrounding San Mateo County is a mix of coastal towns and rolling hills with farms, including flower and tree nurseries as well as farms. The county also allows marijuana to be grown in greenhouses and in nurseries in some areas.

It is a majority-white community. About a third of the population is Latino and about five percent are Asian, according to census data.

“We are sickened by today’s tragedy in Half Moon Bay,” said San Mateo County supervisor Dave Pine. “We don’t even have time to grieve for those lost in the terrible shooting in Monterey Park. Gun violence must stop.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that he was “in a hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I asked to be pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay. Tragedy upon tragedy.”