Seven killed in two shootings in Half Moon Bay, California

Seven people were killed and one person critically injured in two related shootings at agricultural facilities in a coastal community in northern California, and a suspect is in custody.

The latest bloodshed in the United States came less than 48 hours after an attacker killed 11 people at a Lunar New Year celebration near Los Angeles, California, on Saturday night.

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Dave Pine said on Monday that four people were killed at a mushroom farm and three at a trucking business on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, a city about 48km (30 miles) south of San Francisco.

It was not immediately clear how the locations were connected, though Pine said the suspect worked for one of the businesses. He called the suspect a “disgruntled worker”.

Half Moon Bay Vice Mayor Joaquin Jimenez said the victims included Chinese and Latino farmworkers.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office tweeted just before 5pm (01:00 GMT) that a suspect was in custody.

“The Sheriff’s Office is responding to a shooting incident with multiple victims in the area of [Highway] 92 and the [Half Moon Bay] City limits,” the office tweeted.

“There is no ongoing threat to the community at this time,” the sheriff’s office said.

Television footage from the area showed officers taking a man into custody without incident. Aerial television images also showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses.

Christina Corpus, San Mateo County sheriff, said the reason behind the shootings was not yet known.

She identified the suspect as Half Moon Bay resident Chunli Zhao, 67, who was “taken into custody without incident” after being located in his vehicle in the parking lot of the sheriff’s substation in Half Moon Bay, she said. A semi-automatic handgun was found in the suspect’s vehicle, she said.

A video of the arrest showed three officers approaching a parked car with drawn weapons. Zhao got out of the car, and the officers pulled him to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and led him away.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office first received reports of a shooting just before 2:30pm (22:30 GMT) and found four people dead from gunshot wounds and a fifth injured person at the first scene. Shortly after, officers found three more people dead from gunshot wounds at a second location about 8km (5 miles) away, Captain Eamonn Allen said in a news release.

The shooting followed the killing of 11 people late on Saturday at a Lunar New Year event at a ballroom dance hall in Monterey Park in southern California.