Business or personal? Police ID suspect in California mass shooting that killed 4, including 9yo boy, say he knew victims

Orange, California police have identified the man they say fatally shot four people, including a nine-year-old child, saying he knew the victims either personally or via the business he apparently attacked.

Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, was behind the Wednesday afternoon attack on the offices of Unified Homes, a real estate brokerage in the city of some 140,000 southeast of Los Angeles. Three adults and the child, whose names have not yet been released, were found dead on the premises. 

Gonzalez himself was shot in the head and hand, most likely by the responding police officers. He is currently in an area hospital in a “critical but stable condition,” police said at a press conference on Thursday. The authorities are currently looking at whether he had a criminal history and trying to decide whether to seek the death penalty or life without parole when they charge him.

Citing police sources, local media reported that Gonzalez locked the courtyard of the office park before opening fire through the windows. Officially, police have only said the shooting was not a “random act of violence” and believe it was an isolated incident. 

The motive behind the attack, and the relationships between the victims and the suspect, remain unknown. One of the women who was killed was found “embracing the child,” the police said. 

California politicians reacted to Wednesday’s shooting by denouncing “gun violence” and calling for further restrictions. However, the state already has the largest number of gun regulations in the US – at least 111, according to researchers – and is rated very highly by gun control activists. Second Amendment advocates, by contrast, rank it the fifth worst among the 50 US states.

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