Thread: At least 3 dead in California shooting spree

Orange County shooting spree: Suspect kills 3, commits suicide; motive sought

Tuesday, February 19, 2013
By Eileen Frere, Melissa MacBride and Sid Garcia

TUSTIN, Calif. (KABC) -- Four people, including a suspect wanted for a homicide investigation, have been confirmed dead at multiple locations in Orange County.
The suspect was identified as 20-year-old Ladera Ranch resident Ali Syed. Tustin Police said Syed did not have a criminal history.

Police responded to a call of a shooting at a home at Red Leaf Lane in Ladera Ranch around 4:45 a.m. When officers arrived, they found a woman dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

Syed allegedly shot and killed the woman before fleeing in a black SUV. The Orange County Sheriff's Dept. said the woman was in her 20s. She was not identified. It was not clear what she was doing in the residence. She was not related to Syed, according to the department.

He then participated in three different carjackings and shootings at different locations in Tustin and Santa Ana.

Tustin Police responded to a call of a carjacking with shots fired around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police said the suspect, armed with two long guns, crashed at Red Hill Avenue and Nissan Road and carjacked a vehicle. During the carjacking, a bystander was shot. That bystander was hospitalized.

Police responded to a second call of a fatal carjacking and shooting shortly after. The suspect allegedly killed a victim near the 55 Freeway off-ramp at McFadden Avenue and Village Way in Santa Ana. The Santa Ana carjack victim was identified as 69-year-old Laguna Hills resident Melvin Lee Edwards.

"The suspect was driving a vehicle that he had taken in the Tustin incident," Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said in a 10 a.m. news conference. "Reports are that he got out of the vehicle, confronted our victim who was in his BMW. He orders him out of his vehicle, walks him to the side of the curb and executes our victim."


The suspect then drove to the Micro Center parking lot near the 1100 block of East Edinger and Newport Avenue in Tustin. Two additional victims, identified as construction workers, were reportedly shot there.
Foreman Tom Van Schindel said the workers arrived early to work at a hotel site that was under construction. Schindel was in his office when he said he heard what he thought to be just noise.

"I thought it was my plumbers getting materials out of their container and not realizing what else was transpiring across the street until my plumbing foreman came in and said one of his plumbers had passed away," Schindel said.

He thought their had been an accident on the job but the commotion was a deadly shooting across the street. One of the victims was pronounced dead at the scene. A plumber at the site told police he witnessed a gunman shoot and kill his coworker.

Another coworker named "Shane" reportedly tried to help. That's when the suspect order Shane out of his vehicle and fired more shots. He was struck in the arm but survived.

Superintendent Craig Heising spoke with Shane, who was transported to a hospital following the shooting, via phone.

"He seemed like he was going to be fine. He had mentioned the fact that he had a buckshot, which would be a shotgun-type wound to his arm," Heising said.
The workers building the hotel said they usually park in a lot next to the Micro Center where the shooting happened. It remains unclear why their coworker pulled up to the computer store's parking and confronted the suspect.

Following the shooting at the Micro Center, officers located the suspect in the stolen vehicle and followed him to the city of Orange. That's when, according to police, the suspect shot and killed himself on Wanda Road and Katella Avenue.
Police said the suspect shot at other vehicles on the southbound 55 Freeway in between the carjackings.

"It appears the suspect pulled his vehicle over at some point and either was firing as he was driving or pulled over and got out of his vehicle on the side of the freeway and started firing," Tustin Police Department Lt. Paul Garaven said.

The two wounded carjacking victims were taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana. An additional victim suffered minor injuries but was not hospitalized. He was reportedly shot on the freeway. Officials said two additional vehicles were reportedly damaged by the suspect's gunfire.

Several agencies are investigating the shootings near freeways in the Tustin area including the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Tustin Police Department, and Santa Ana Police Department.

Police said they are investigating five different crime scenes. The motive remains unknown.

A news conference to update the case is scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8998423

Shooter in California rampage identified as 20-year-old part-time student Ali Syed - WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge, Louisiana News, Weather, Sports

O.C. shooter runs out of gas, then 'executes' victim, police say - latimes.com

Dead suspect.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/reportedly-496387-fired-freeway.html?pic=2

Can I call it or what? Now we need to know this deadly kid's immigration status.

W

CA officials learn ID of 1st rampage victim

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
Published: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013 - 7:56 am
Last Modified: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013 - 11:37 am

TUSTIN, Calif. -- Southern California authorities say they have identified a woman in her 20s who was killed in a home in southern Orange County at the outset of a gunman's hour-long shooting spree.

Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said Wednesday that the woman's name will not be released publicly until her family is notified. . .

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/20/5203550/details-emerge-on-calif-shooting.html

Investigators have identified a 20-year-old Buena Park woman who was shot multiple times in a Ladera Ranch home, the first victim of a man suspected of killing two other people before taking his own life.

Sheriff's officials Wednesday afternoon identified Courtney Aoki, a Buena Park resident, as the first victim, based they say on their latest fingerprint check. Her relationship with the shooting suspect is not known, authorities said. . .

Photo of Courtney Aoki, 20, of Buena Park.

Woman shot in Ladera home identified | syed, police, shot - News - The Orange County Register

O.C. killer an obsessive video gamer

Ali Syed, who fatally shot three people and himself in O.C., is described as a loner and computer student.

Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino gives updated information on Tuesday's slayings. "There's still a lot of work to do in this case," Amormino said. Syed left "no evidence, no note, no nothing that would explain this very bizarre, violent behavior." (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / February 20, 2013)

By Nicole Santa Cruz, Rick Rojas and Mike Anton, Los Angeles TimesFebruary 20, 2013, 6:12 p.m.

Ali Syed was a 20-year-old loner who took occasional computer classes at a community college and spent a lot of time alone in his room playing video games, said an Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman.

How he crossed paths with 20-year-old Courtney Aoki remains a mystery.

Early Tuesday morning, Aoki was in Syed's bedroom, inside the town house he shared with his parents in the upscale Ladera Ranch development. Gunshots rang out from the bedroom, and Syed ran out of the house and drove away, police said.

Aoki was dead from multiple wounds from a shotgun Syed's father had bought him about a year ago.

So began a rampage through Orange County in which Syed killed three people and injured three others before taking his own life, police said.

Authorities on Wednesday released 911 tapes in which Syed's frantic parents reported the shooting.

But officials said they were no closer to knowing a motive for the shooting rampage.

"There's still a lot of work to do in this case," sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Syed left "no evidence, no note, no nothing that would explain this very bizarre, violent behavior."

Authorities said they didn't know how Aoki got to the Ladera Ranch home. She was dressed when she was found, and there was no evidence of sexual assault.

Syed's mother called 911 at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday.

"I think somebody's shot ... in my house," she said. "Somebody's shot. I think there's somebody shot."

Hysterical, the woman tried to answer the dispatcher's questions. Her husband eventually took over the phone.

"Can you please send somebody here?" he said. "Our son lives with us and I think they got into a fight or something and we heard a gunshot."

The parents told the 911 operator that they were sleeping when they heard what they thought was a gunshot downstairs. They did not enter their son's room, they told a dispatcher, but said he had left the home in their SUV.

"He's gone out," the father said. "He took the car we have.... Yes, he's not home right now. He drove away."

They told the dispatcher they did not see a victim.

"I have not gone in his room," the father said in answer to a dispatcher's questions. "I don't know what's going on."

Detectives had difficulty identifying Aoki, Amormino said, because she had no identification and no vehicle at the Ladera Ranch residence.

No missing person reports had been filed on her.

Amormino said Aoki was identified Wednesday morning from a second set of fingerprints, but authorities were unable to find her mother until about 2:30 p.m.

Although Aoki's mother also lives in Orange County, Aoki did not live with her, Amormino said.

Unemployed and enrolled in one course at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Syed had "most of the day and evening" to play games, Amormino said. "Most of his free time was playing games."

Investigators are still searching Syed's computer for more information, including which games he favored.

Syed had been enrolled at Saddleback since the fall semester of 2010, and had earned about 30 credits, said Jennie McCue, a college spokeswoman.

Syed took mostly general education courses that would be needed to transfer to a four-year university.

He was enrolled in a computer maintenance and repair class, McCue said.
Syed graduated in 2010 from Junipero Serra Continuation High School in San Juan Capistrano, where "students who have faced many personal and academic obstacles discover their own resiliency by making good personal choices," according to the school's website.

After allegedly killing Aoki, Syed headed north on the 5 Freeway.

Syed left the 5 Freeway in Tustin. Authorities said he wounded one man and then approached another man pumping gas at the adjacent Mobil station and politely asked him for the keys to his pickup.

"I just killed someone," he told the man, adding that he didn't want to hurt him, according to police. "This is my last day."

From there, Syed headed north on the 5 Freeway, exiting onto the southbound 55 where he pulled over and began firing at passing vehicles, police said.
Three were hit and one driver was injured by flying glass.

Syed jumped back in the pickup and left the freeway at Edinger Avenue in Santa Ana, where he collided with another vehicle and crashed into a lane divider.

He abandoned the truck and accosted the driver of a BMW that was stopped nearby.

The driver, Melvin L. Edwards, was headed to work at his family manufacturing business when Syed ordered him from his car and walked him to the curb.

Edwards complied yet Syed pumped three rounds into him, killing him.

Syed then drove Edwards' BMW about a half-mile to a Micro Center electronics store in Tustin where plumber Jeremy Lewis, 26, of Fullerton had pulled into the parking lot to begin his workday at a nearby hotel construction site.

A co-worker saw Lewis being chased by an armed Syed and drove to the site to help.

Syed killed Lewis, wounded his colleague and sped away in Lewis' work truck.
Syed then got on the northbound 55 Freeway, where California Highway Patrol deputies spotted him shortly before 6 a.m.

They followed Syed as he exited at Katella Avenue in Villa Park. After driving a few blocks, Syed jumped from the slow-moving vehicle and shot himself in the head.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0221-oc-shooting-20130221,0,213907,full.story