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The slayings of seven people, gunned down in a small Northern California city, was an act of „workplace violence“ that victimized members of the „migrant community,“ officials said Tuesday.
Suspect Chunli Zhao, a 66-year-old resident of Half Moon Bay, worked at Mountain Mushroom Farm, one of two agricultural businesses where workers were killed on Monday afternoon, authorities said.
“The only known connection between the victims and the suspect is that they may have been co-workers,“ San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus told reporters in nearby Redwood City. „All of the evidence we have points to this being the instance of workplace violence.“
Five of the fatally wounded victims were men, Corpus said at a later news conference. Two were women. A man who was hospitalized with life-threatening wounds Monday was in stable condition, she said.
Zhao was arrested in the parking lot of a sheriff’s substation in Half Moon Bay shortly after the attacks.
“The semi-automatic handgun was legally purchased and owned,” Corpus said.
Sheriff’s investigators also said they’re struggling to notify loved ones of victims who were described as „members of the migrant community,“ who were of Asian and Hispanic descent.
