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A gunman who killed four people, including a 9-year-old boy, in a rampage at an office building in Southern California knew all the victims and his motive could involve personal or professional connections, police said.
“It was not a random act of violence,” Orange Police Lt Jennifer Amat said Thursday of the attack on a two-story building housing small businesses in Orange, southeast of Los Angeles.
Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, has been identified as the alleged shooter. He was in critical but stable condition. It was not clear whether he was injured by police or shot himself, Amat said.
Gonzalez, from nearby Fullerton, was staying at a motel in nearby Anaheim and used a rental car to arrive at the office building on Lincoln Avenue. He chained the front and back doors of the complex with bicycle cable locks and was spotted in security video wearing a bandana on his face, wielding a semi-automatic handgun and carrying a backpack containing gas pepper, handcuffs and ammunition, police said.
He targeted Unified Homes, a mobile home brokerage firm, authorities said.
Among the victims was a 9-year-old boy who was found cradled in the arms of an injured woman, in critical but stable condition. A family member identified one victim as Luis Tovar, 50, owner of Unified Homes.
“Our world is shattered,” Vania Tovar, 28, one of Tovar’s five children, told the Orange County Register.
Another of her children, Thalia Tovar, said in a GoFundMe page that her sister Geneviève Raygoza was also killed. She also said that Leticia Solis and Matthew Farias, a young boy, were among the victims. Posts on the same GoFundMe page identified Farias’ mother, Blanca Tamayo, as the woman injured in the attack.
Orange County coroner officials did not immediately confirm the identity of the victims, said Carrie Braun, spokesperson for the county sheriff’s department.
Reports of gunfire in the city of Orange sent officers to the scene within two minutes, and they exchanged gunshots with the gunman through a door before the locks were cut, Amat said. . A man was found dead in one office, a woman in another office and a second woman was found on an outside landing upstairs.
“It appears that a little boy died in his mother’s arms as she tried to save him during this horrific massacre,” said Todd Spitzer, Orange District Attorney.
The preliminary motive is believed to relate to a business and personal relationship between the suspect and the victims, Amat said. She said the precise relationship was still being determined.
The violence was the country’s third major mass shooting in just over two weeks. Last week, a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo., Killing 10. A week earlier, six Asian women were among eight people killed at three Atlanta-area spas.
Scott Clark, owner of Calco Financial, a stone’s throw from Unified Homes, said he saw around 10 people working at Unified Homes but didn’t know them well. He said he chatted with Luis Tovar, sometimes inviting him to his own office for a break, and described him as a hard worker.
“He’s there day and night,” Clark said.
Clark left his office at around 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, earlier than usual. “I must have had an angel of God watching over me to send me away an hour before I usually do,” he said.
Gonzalez was charged in 2015 in Orange County with child cruelty and other counts. He pleaded guilty to drumming and served a day in jail. All other charges were dismissed and the conviction overturned in 2017, said Lauren Gold, spokeswoman for the city of Anaheim.
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