Suspect Chunli Zhao in custody after 7 dead in mass shooting in California’s Half Moon Bay
- Chinese farmworkers reportedly among victims of shootings in Half Moon Bay, 30 miles from San Francisco; suspect, 67, is thought to be a colleague of the deceased
- Incident comes shortly after Huu Can Tran, 72, killed 11 at a dance hall near Los Angeles then killed himself; China is warning its citizens in US to avoid crowded places
Seven people were killed in two related shootings on Monday at agricultural businesses in a northern California community, less than two days after an attack at a dance hall that killed 11 during Lunar New Year celebrations.
The authorities said they had not identified the motive for the state’s rampages, which seemed especially baffling in part because the suspects in each incident were men of retirement age - 67 and 72 - which is much older than is typical for perpetrators of deadly mass shootings that have become numbingly routine in the United States.
Investigators were still probing the motives behind the killings, which also stood out among the scourge of mass shootings in the US for the community impacted, as gun violence is usually seen as rare among Asians and Asian Americans.
The nonpartisan Violence Project says 79 per cent of mass shooters from 1966-2020 were under the age of 45, and says only 6.4 per cent of mass shooters in that time were Asian.
In the wake of the latest killings, China’s foreign ministry called for its citizens in the US to “pay close attention to the local security situation” and “avoid going to places where people gather”.
Officers arrested a suspect in Monday’s shootings, 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, after they found him in his car in the car park of a sheriff’s substation, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said.