California Office Shooting
Officials work outside the scene of a shooting, Thursday, April 1, 2021 in Orange, Calif. The gunman who killed four people and wounded a fifth at an office complex knew all the victims either through business or personally, Southern California police said Thursday. (Paul Bersebach/The Orange County Register via AP)
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By Stefanie Dazio and Amy Taxin, Associated Press . . .

A gunman who killed four people, including a 9-year-old boy, in a rampage at a Southern California office building knew all the victims and his motive may have involved personal or business relationships, police said.

“This was not a random act of violence,” Lt. Jennifer Amat said Thursday of the attack at a building that housed small businesses in Orange, southeast of Los Angeles.

Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, was identified as the suspected shooter. He was in critical but stable condition. It wasn’t clear whether he was wounded by police or shot himself, Amat said.

Gonzalez, from nearby Fullerton, was staying at a motel in neighboring Anaheim and used a rented car to arrive at the two-story office building on Lincoln Avenue, Amat said.

He chained the front and rear gates to the complex with bicycle cable locks and was spotted on security video wearing a bandana over his face, brandishing a semautomatic handgun and hauling a backpack that contained pepper spray, handcuffs and ammunition, police said.

He targeted Unified Homes, a mobile home brokerage business, authorities said.

Reports of shots fired sent officers to the scene within two minutes, and they exchanged gunfire with the shooter through a gate before the locks were cut, Amat said.

This undated photo provided by the Orange Police Department shows Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, a 44-year-old Fullerton, Calif., man who is the suspect in a shooting that occurred inside a counseling business in Orange, Calif., on Wednesday, March 31, 2021. A child was among four people killed Wednesday in the shooting at a Southern California office building that left a fifth victim wounded and the gunman critically injured, police said. (Orange Police Department via AP)

The dead included a 9-year-old boy who was found cradled in the arms of a wounded woman, who was in critical but stable condition.

“It appears that a little boy died in his mother’s arms as she was trying to save him during this horrific massacre,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.

A man was found dead inside an office, a woman in another office and a second woman was found on an outdoor landing upstairs.

“The preliminary motive is believed to be related to a business and personal relationship which existed between the suspect and all of the victims,” Amat said. However, she said the precise relationships were still being determined.

A family member identified one victim as Luis Tovar, 50, who owned Unified Homes.

“Our world is shattered,” 28-year-old Vania Tovar, one of Tovar’s five children, told the Orange County Register.

The violence in the city of Orange was the nation’s third major mass shooting in just over two weeks. Last week a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, and killed 10. A week before that, six Asian women were among eight people killed at three Atlanta-area spas.

Scott Clark, who is owner of Calco Financial that is two doors down from Unified Homes, described Luis Tovar as hard-working.

“He’s there day and night,” Clark said.

Clark left his office on Wednesday, around 4:45 p.m., earlier than usual.

“I must have had an angel from God watching out for me to make me leave an hour before I usually do,” he said.

Clark said he has worked out of the building for about 21 years, and Unified Homes has been in that location for seven or eight years. He said they expanded to a second suite about a year ago, and both offices were on the second level.

Clark said he has seen about 10 people working inside Unified Homes but doesn’t know them well. He said he has chatted with Tovar, sometimes inviting him inside his own office to take a break.

Gonzalez was charged in 2015 in Orange County with cruelty to a child and other counts. It’s not clear if the child that died was his. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and served one day in jail. All other counts were dismissed, and the conviction was expunged in 2017, said Lauren Gold, spokeswoman for the city of Anaheim.

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30 COMMENTS

    • I wouldn’t worry about it. Usually the news sees a name like “Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez” and says, “shit, he’s not white, let’s forget this whole thing.”

      It’ll fall out of the news like the other recent shootings they tried to capitalize on.

  2. So it was a white man, who’s heritage is from a spanish speaking country. Nothing to see here. And since the california mexico border is wide open, and the three L’s like it that way, there will be more of theses kinds of shootings. That will go unreported. Or barely reported at all.

    • You are a delusional very few people want open borders. That’s the same as saying they all want prisoners released, the police defunded and so on. Nothing like making blanket statements without any evidence. It gets old with you and eventually people just tune it out.

      • Donald Trump is hated by Libertarians liberals and the left because he publicly said America first. The Three L’s are globalist internationalist, in their thinking and policies that they support. And many of them are helped by like-minded corporatist Republicans.

        Those of us who support national borders that are enforced, and an immigration system that benefits American society, not just American Business, agree with President Trump. As we say if you “demagnetize the United States” illegal immigrants will leave on their own. They got here on their own. And they will figure out a way to leave here on their own. By hiring Americans first instead of foreigners you reduce the need for the welfare industrial complex. If foreigners cannot find jobs here then they will leave on their own.

        Every other Society puts their Citizens First. But not the Libertarians.

        Unemployment reached record lows under the leadership of President Trump. Because it was Private businesses who are hiring people. Reducing regulations and lowering business taxes are what caused the unemployment level to drop. Not government jobs which is the way the Democrats prefer it to be. But Libertarians are happy to have government expand.

        Because the ultimate goal of Libertarians is not to reduce government regulations. The goal of the Libertarians is not to reduce taxes. The goal of the Libertarians is to legalize drugs. That is why they will never support the Republicans. Because the Republicans, in general, are against legalizing drugs.

        Libertarians will always support a socialist Progressive who supports legalizing drugs. It doesn’t matter that they want to raise everyone’s taxes. And increase government regulations in every sphere of an individual’s life.

        As long as Libertarians can get drugs legalized they will support the agenda of a communist.

        Are Libertarians the Useful Idiots of Big Business?

        The ansewer is YES they are. video 1 hour long
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDHzgDDEdeU

        • “By hiring Americans first instead of foreigners you reduce the need for the welfare industrial complex.”

          Very true, and it works both ways. Eliminating the welfare industrial complex would make “jobs Americans won’t do” the only viable alternative to starvation. It would also make the US far less attractive to the many who come here for reasons that don’t involve work.

        • Libertarians are mostly mindless idiots. All they do is run interference for the Democrat (socialist) Party. They openly campaign for open borders and every other disastrous ideas snotball corrupted politicians run on. Every bit as useless to our nation as the Democrats are.

        • Sorry Chris T in KY, but lumping libertarians with the left is completely wrong. Some Libertarians may want open borders but a good many dont. They Also Dont Want to give Govt more power in fact they want to remove MOST of the power the govt has pushing Govt back to the sort of level of power the founding fathers intended, eg. virtually no power to influence our lives unless we commit some Actual Crime such as rape, murder, theft etc where there is a victim. This also includes removing individual taxation which the federal govt survived quite well without before about 1904.

        • I’m a conservative and supported Trump in his election against that B*itch Hillary.

          But over time I tired of his narcissism and self-promotion and, as a medical scientist, I was appalled by incompetence on COVID-19.

          I stayed home in the recent election as I couldn’t suffer voting for either him or Biden.

          Message, it’s not just the Left that despised Trump.

  3. So of the three majors only one was “kinda” random, the only one that involved an AR platform weapon sadly (for the gun grabbers) was a Syrian Jihadi shooting up a bunch of Jews… Gun grabbers are 0 for 3, BUT they won’t give up… Can’t wait to see what happens next, maybe an attack on a facility holding illegal migrant children… White guy with a couple of ARs (rifle AND pistol) toss in an AK just for grins with a backpack full of BIG capacity magazines… Should get the body count THEY need, the RIGHT perp AND all the right weapons and stuff…

    • I don’t know if the victims in Boulder Colorado we’re Jewish or not. But I do know that the Jewish gun grabbers really don’t care. They would support the agenda of Adolf Hitler which included the confiscation of firearms.

      And for those that are upset about what I just said? I suggest you look up the history of the Jewish terrorist group The Irgun. They were socialists. Just like Adolf Hitler. He was a socialist. They helped found the state of Israel. Which is a socialist country to this day. Which is why you can’t have guns in the socialist jewish state of israel. And they publicly agreed with much of the agenda of Adolf Hitler. You need to do your research. Open your eyes. And stop listening to the propaganda of left wing historians.

      The Jewish leadership in Israel may or may not allow you to have a handgun. A five-shot revolver perhaps? But they certainly will not allow you to have any rifle with a normal capacity magazine.

  4. It’ll be swept under the same rug as the Deontes and Lemonjellos from Chicago…. move along, nuthin’ to see here !!

  5. I really wish TTAG would stop running AP articles. At least frame it with some commentary or critique or something. This is just lazy.

    I could go to any of a thousand “mainstream” news sites and see the exact same mass-produced progressive propaganda if that’s what I wanted…it’s not what I come here for.

  7. This body count happens every weekend in Chicago.
    Why is this news?
    Only because the MoFoMedia was hoping for a white shooter.

    • It’s racist to expect the Chicagoans to NOT kill each other. Their behavior is a manifestation of the abuses they have incurred at the hands of white supremacy.

      For every Black Disciple that kills a Gangster Disciple an old white guy in Vermont needs to be punished.

      • Not only punished, but have his pockets turned inside out…. someone gotta pay fo mo free shit, trillions don’t jus gro on trees!!

  8. Miner said: “Maybe you should read the Washington post, or USA today or watch ABC News”

    Huh, what ???

    Why would I want to dumb down like the rest of you liberals, just because they accidentally post a tiny germ of truth every once in a while?

    The press is supposed to be our guardian against an overreaching gubment, instead they, and their minions like you, are the purveyors of mind numbing drugs to a population of useful liberal idiots, and you do this with the smug self-righteousness of one who is totally blind to what is apparent to everyone else.

    I guess, when you have no conscience and shame, lying comes easy, and truth becomes too blurry to recognize.

  10. Where do the Democrat’s find these people to commit these crimes and how much do they pay them?

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