A 9-year-old boy was killed, along with three others, in a Wednesday shooting at an office building in Southern California, leaving a fifth victim and the gunman critically wounded, according to police.
Authorities in the city of Orange, just southeast of Los Angeles, arrived at a two-story office building at around 5:30 p.m. to shots being fired, Orange Police Department Lt. Jennifer Amat told KTLA-TV.
Two other victims were critically injured, including the gunman. During a Thursday news conference, Amat said the suspect, 44-year-old Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, of Fullerton, and the victims apparently knew each other.
According to police, at least one officer opened fire on the gunman, though authorities are still working to determine whether his wound was self-inflicted.
The office building has multiple tenant businesses, including a mental health counseling services office, a State Farm insurance office, a financial consulting firm, a legal services firm, and a phone repair store. Shootings occurred on both floors of the building, Amat initially stated Wednesday.
Alec Torres, a business owner from the building complex, said the shooter reportedly locked an entrance-exit gate and likely was familiar with the property.
“I believe the shooter was familiar with the building,” Torres said. “He closed the front gate to the entrance, which would not allow anybody to leave.”
“This was not a random act of violence,” Amat said Thursday, adding that “the preliminary motive is believed to be related to a business and personal relationship.”
The 9-year-old boy was the son of a victim who worked at one of the businesses, Amat said.
The situation stabilized by 7 p.m. Wednesday, according to authorities.
The same day, Amat said the shooting was the worst in the city since December 1997, when an armed Caltrans worker killed four people at a Department of Transportation maintenance yard.
The shooting follows two other recent mass shootings, one which left 10 dead in Boulder, Colorado, last week and a separate shooting in Atlanta that left eight dead earlier in March.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the killings “horrifying and heartbreaking” in a Twitter post.
“Our hearts are with the families impacted by this terrible tragedy tonight,” he wrote.
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Rep. Katie Porter, a California Democrat whose district includes the city of Orange, wrote on Twitter that she was “deeply saddened.”
