San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe the recent Half Moon Bay mass shooting was second shooting at California Terra Garden in 7 months.
BAY, Calif. — As the shocked Half Moon Bay community continues to mourn the mass shootings that killed seven and seriously injured one other, new details are coming out about one of the locations of the tragedy.
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said that California Terra Gardens, previously known as Mountain Mushroom Farm was the site of another shooting in July of 2022.
The DA says the suspect and the victim in that incident were both managers at the Half Moon Bay farm.
The two men lived in trailers on the farm and had ongoing work-related tensions between them.
The DA’s office says the victim was in his home Friday, July 1 at 11:30 p.m. when he heard the suspect banging on his front door threatening to kill him and his family.
The suspect fired a gun through the victim’s glass door.
Deputies later arrested the suspect who they say smelled of alcohol and denied shooting.
The July shooting and the most recent mass shooting involved different people and different circumstances, what they may have had in common was tension between employees at the farm.
Though an official motive in the most recent mass shooting has not been given by the district attorney, investigators say the suspect, 66-year-old Chunli Zhao was allegedly taunted with an offensive nickname that may have fueled his anger leading up to the attack.
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Local leaders are now investigating the working and living conditions of the farms.
For now, as more details come in on what led up to the mass shootings and conditions on the farms, the main focus of locals continues to be helping one another and healing.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office says the state is now investigating the conditions of farmworkers following the Half Moon Bay mass shooting at two mushroom farms.
A spokesperson from Newsom’s office tweeted a statement, saying the state is looking into the farms to ensure the “workers are treated fairly and with the compassion they deserve.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, Gov. Newsom said he was told about the “deplorable” living and working conditions of the farmworkers at the locations involved in the shooting.
It was shared with him that farmworkers were being paid $9 an hour and living in shipping containers.
“Many workers have no choice but to tolerate the conditions provided to them by their employers,” the Governor’s Office statement said in part. “Our country relies on their back-breaking work, yet Congress cannot even provide them the stability of raising their families and working in this country without fear of deportation, which contributes to their vulnerability in the workplace. That is no way to live.”
TAKE ACTION: Resources for people impacted by Half Moon Bay mass shooting
The spokesperson also tweeted that Cal/OSHA and the Labor Commissioner’s office are investigating if there were any labor and workplace safety and health violations at the farms.
On Thursday, 40 farmworker families are waking up in a hotel for the third morning in a row, after being displaced from their homes on the farms.
“When people are asking, what can we do, we’re reaching out to say, can you find a home?” Belinda Arriaga, founder of Half Moon Bay non-profit ALAS said. “Are there homes that can be rented to multiple families? Can we find compassionate landlords out there?”
Arriaga says their poor living conditions have been put in the spotlight because of Monday’s shooting.
And while county officials say these families should be allowed to return to their homes on the farms by Friday, Arriaga says, let’s not send them back to the same living conditions.
“More and more, our low-income community, especially our farmworker community has been pushed out of being able to afford rents and it pushes them into some substandard living conditions sometimes,” she said.
