The alleged sniper who killed four people, including a 9-year-old boy, inside a shopping complex in Southern California this week and opened fire on police, was charged with several homicide charges, officials said on Friday.
Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, remains hospitalized in stable condition after being shot by police. He faces four counts of murder, one charge of attempted murder and two charges of attempted murder of a police officer.
He also faces several weapon enhancement charges.
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Authorities said Gonzalez entered a shopping complex on Lincoln Avenue in Orange, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, Orange County, on Wednesday and opened fire.
Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, a 44-year-old man from Fullerton, California, is suspected of a shootout that took place inside a counseling firm in Orange, California, on Wednesday. A child was among the four people killed on Wednesday in the shooting in a Southern California commercial building, which left a fifth victim injured and the sniper seriously injured, police said. (Orange Police Department via AP)
“Taking the life of another human being is the most serious of crimes and the massacre of several people while they were essentially locked in a shooting gallery is nothing short of terrifying,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a communicated.
When the police arrived at the scene, they discovered that the complex’s gate had been locked with a lock similar to a bicycle cable. Gonzalez shot two policemen, who responded to the outside fire and wounded him, officials said.
Once inside the compound, the police found the four victims dead.
The authorities identified them as Luis Tovar, 50; Letícia Solis Guzman, 58; Jenevieve Raygoza, 28; and Matthew Farias, 9. Gonzalez and the victims maintained personal and commercial relationships with each other, officials said.
A woman was injured and taken to a hospital, where she remains stable.
KABC, an ABC-owned TV station in Los Angeles, informed police that the shooting was not “an act of random violence” and that Gonzalez knew all the victims. The target was Unified Homes, a mobile home brokerage company.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer speaks during a news conference on Thursday at the Orange Police Department headquarters in Orange, California (AP Photo / Stefanie Dazio)
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“He doesn’t normally go there,” Zef Farias, the boy’s uncle, told the Associated Press. “They were only part of the collateral damage.”
Wednesday’s shooting occurred amid two other mass shootings in Colorado, where 10 people were killed, and in the Atlanta area, where eight people died.