Suspect in Northern California shootings may have worked with victims, police say

The suspect arrested in reference to a pair of shootings in Northern California on Monday could have labored with the victims, the native sheriff mentioned.

“All the proof we have now factors to this being the occasion of office violence,” San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus mentioned at a press convention on Tuesday.

Seven folks have been killed and one was injured within the two associated shootings at farms in Half Moon Bay on Monday. 

Police arrested Chunli Zhao on Monday afternoon within the parking zone of the Sheriff’s Workplace Half Moon Bay Police Substation, the place he was discovered sitting in his automobile. Zhao labored at Mountain Mushroom Farm, the positioning of the primary taking pictures, Corpus mentioned.

Zhao, who police consider acted alone, legally bought and owned the semi-automatic handgun present in his automobile, the sheriff added.

Corpus added on Tuesday that the coroner’s workplace remains to be working to determine the victims and notify subsequent of kin. 

“As a few of these victims have been members of our migrant group, this represents a novel problem in the case of notifications and identifications of subsequent of kin,” she mentioned.

The deaths come on the heels of a mass taking pictures in Monterey Park, Calif., on Saturday evening that killed 11 folks. There have been not less than 39 mass shootings within the U.S. up to now in 2023, in keeping with the Gun Violence Archive.

President Biden renewed his name for a federal ban on assault weapons on Tuesday within the wake of the California shootings.

“Whilst we await additional particulars on these shootings, we all know the scourge of gun violence throughout America requires stronger motion,” Biden mentioned in an announcement. “I as soon as once more urge each chambers of Congress to behave shortly and ship this Assault Weapons Ban to my desk, and take motion to maintain American communities, faculties, workplaces, and houses protected.”