Active Shooter In Orange County Kills Child & Three Others | Orange
3.31.2021 | 5:30 PM | ORANGE (CNS) – A gunman who carried out a deadly rampage inside an office complex in Orange, killing four people including a 9-year-old boy, was acquainted either personally or professionally with the victims and specifically targeted the real estate services company, police said Thursday.
The suspect, identified by police as 44-year-old Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, was shot by police in the courtyard of the building in the 200 block of West Lincoln Avenue, according to Orange Police Department Lt. Jennifer Amat. The shooting happened at Unified Homes, a mobile home dealer and real estate service.
Police responded to the complex at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and were initially unable to enter due to bicycle cable locks that were used to secure the north and south gates of the courtyard, Amat said. Two officers spotted the suspect inside the courtyard, leading to a shooting that left the suspect wounded. It’s unclear if the suspect fired at police.
Police were already in the area and were able to respond immediately to multiple 911 calls of shots fired, said incoming Police Chief Dan Adams, who will take over for Tom Kisela, who is retiring on July 3.
Officers managed to force their way into the courtyard, where they tended to the wounded suspect and a woman who had been shot, both of whom were hospitalized in critical but stable condition. A 9-year-old boy, believed to be the woman’s son, was found dead in the courtyard. According to District Attorney Todd Spitzer, the child died in his wounded mother’s arms.
Officers then fanned out through the complex and found three more deceased victims, Amat said. One woman was found on an upstairs outdoor landing; one man was found inside an office building; and another woman was found inside a separate building.
None of the victims were publicly identified pending notification of their families.
Amat said officers recovered a semi-automatic handgun inside the complex, along with a backpack containing pepper spray, handcuffs and ammunition believed to belong to the suspect, Amat said.
Details on Gonzalez’s background were not provided, but Amat said the “preliminary motive is believed to be related to a business and personal relationship which existed between the suspect and all of the victims.”
“It appears all of the adults were connected through either a business or personal relationship, and this was not a random act of violence,” Amat said. “… To reiterate, this appears to be an isolated incident, and we believe everybody knew each other, whether through a business or personal relationship.”
At a late morning news conference, Spitzer said: “It’s not really a good morning even though it’s beautiful outside. This is child abuse prevention month and it appears a little boy died in his mother’s arms as she was trying to save him during this horrific massacre.”
He said the suspect “made the decision to use deadly force” to resolve dispute and “he will suffer and face the consequences.”
According to Orange County Superior Court records, the suspect, listed as Aminadab Gaxiola, was charged in April 2015 with misdemeanor courts of child abuse and endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, dissuading a witness from reporting a crime and battery in a case in which he allegedly assaulted a boy in his care or custody with an umbrella on March 31, 2015, in Anaheim.
The child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon and dissuading a witness counts were dismissed on Nov. 30, 2015, and the battery charge was dismissed on Sept. 26, 2017, because of a law that allows for the expunging of convictions if a defendant clears probation successfully.
The shooting drew a heavy law enforcement presence with more than a dozen police cars and a SWAT vehicle at the building, including fire engines from multiple fire departments. The FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms also sent agents to the scene, as did the District Attorney’s Office.
Amat said the city had not seen such violence since 1997, when five people were killed and two others wounded when a state employee opened fire at the Caltrans facility near Batavia Street and Taft Avenue. Arturo Reyes Torres, 41, of Huntington Beach, was shot and killed by police a short distance away from the maintenance yard.
It was the third mass casualty shooting since March 16, when a gunman shot and killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, at three spas in the Atlanta area. Six days later, a man shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
Copyright 2021, City News Service, Inc.
For licensing, contact info@onscene.tv
Follow our other platforms!
IG – https://www.instagram.com/onscenetv/?hl=en
FB – https://www.facebook.com/onscenetv/
Comments
