HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) — An agricultural worker killed seven people at the farm where he worked and at another business in Northern California, plunging the state into mourning again in the wake of its third mass killing in eight days.
Officers arrested a suspect in Monday’s shootings, 67-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 a farm and another location several miles away, the Sheriff’s Office said. Officials have suspected that Zhao worked at one of the facilities and that the victims were workers as well, Corpus said. Officials haven’t determined a motive for the shooting.
San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus confirmed Tuesday that Zhao was an employee at Mountain Mushroom Farm. She says that the only known connection between the shooter and his victims is that “they may have been coworkers.”
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.
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.
On Jan. 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 mentioned a possible gang link to the killings.
California was still reeling Tuesday from an attack on a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park 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.
“For the second time in recent days, California communities are mourning the loss of loved ones in a senseless act of gun violence,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday morning. “Even as we await further details on these shootings, we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action.”
The new year has brought six mass killings in the U.S. in fewer than three weeks, accounting for 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 killing — defined as four dead not including the offender — committed in the U.S. since 2006.