A gunman went on a shooting spree in Tehama County in rural Northern California on Tuesday, killing four people before he was shot and killed by law enforcement.
The gunman, who had yet to be identified as of 2:35 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday afternoon, “appeared to pick targets at random,” according to local authorities cited by the Los Angeles Times. One target was an elementary school, where two children were wounded.
The Times reports:
Officials don’t have a motive for the attack but said the gunman seemed to fire at random and might have been in some type of dispute with neighbors.
The gunfire began around 8 a.m. in Rancho Tehama, near Red Bluff, about 120 miles northwest of Sacramento.
“It was all over in about 45 minutes,” Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.
A semi-automatic rifle and two handguns were recovered after deputies shot and killed the gunman.
The Eureka Times-Standard, a regional newspaper, reported that ten people had been injured in the shootings.
USA Today reported that the gunman was a felon — and hence not eligible to purchase or own firearms. It also noted that he “had been shooting hundreds of rounds of bullets in recent days” and that he had stolen two cars, crashing one, during the course of his attack.
“The crazy thing is that the neighbor has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines,” neighbor Brian Flint told USA Today. “We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he’s been threatening us.”
Flint described living next to the gunman as “hell.”
Update: The gunman has been identified as Kevin Janson Neal, 43 (44 in other reports). Further details about the shooting have emerged, including the fact that school officials prevented more injuries — and deaths — by locking down the school and sheltering children inside classrooms. Police rammed the gunman’s vehicle before killing him in a shootout.
Update 2: Police found the corpse of the gunman’s wife underneath the floorboards in his home, bringing the death toll to 5.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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