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About two hours after first responding, a sheriff’s deputy noticed the suspect, Zhao, in his car parked outside a sheriff’s substation in a strip mall and arrested him, recognising the car by its license plate.
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. A weapon was found in his vehicle, officials said. The video was captured by Kati McHugh, a Half Moon Bay resident who witnessed the arrest.
The sheriff’s department believes Zhao acted alone.
“We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened and why, but it’s just incredibly, incredibly tragic,” said state Senator Josh Becker, who represents the area and called it “a very close-knit” agricultural community.
Aerial television images showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses.
Half Moon Bay is a small coastal city with agricultural roots, home to about 12,000 people. The city and surrounding San Mateo County area is known for producing flowers as well as vegetables like brussels sprouts. The county allows cannabis farming in certain areas.
It’s a majority-white community and about 5 per cent of the population is Asian, according to Census data.
“We are sickened by today’s tragedy in Half Moon Bay,” San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Dave Pine said. “We have not even had time to grieve for those lost in the terrible shooting in Monterey Park. Gun violence must stop.”
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California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that he was “at the hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I get pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay. Tragedy upon tragedy.”
In a separate shooting incident in Iowa, two teenage students were killed and a man was seriously injured in what police said was a targeted shooting at an alternative educational program designed to keep at-risk youth away from trouble.
The injured man was identified as the program’s founder — a rapper who left a life of gangs and violence and has been dedicated to helping youth in Des Moines.
Police said that one man had been charged in the shooting on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), and two other people remained in custody. Preston Walls, 18, of Des Moines, was charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for the shooting at the Starts Right Here program. He was also charged with criminal gang participation.
Authorities said the shooting was the result of an ongoing gang dispute.
Police said Walls was on supervised release for a weapons charge and had removed his ankle monitor 16 minutes before the shooting.
“The incident was definitely targeted. It was not random. There was nothing random about this,” Sergeant Paul Parizek said
Two Des Moines teens, an 18-year-old male and a 16-year-old male, were killed. William Holmes — a 49-year-old rapper who founded the program and goes by the stage name Will Keeps — was injured and was in surgery Monday evening.
AP
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