At least seven dead in northern California shootings

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Seven people have been killed in an agricultural region of northern California, authorities said on Monday, the latest shootings to rattle the state in recent days.

Two fatal shootings took place at a mushroom farm and a trucking firm on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, a coastal community about 30 miles south of San Francisco, officials said.

Dave Pine, the president of the San Mateo county board of supervisors, said that four people died at the farm and three at the trucking business.

Police have arrested a suspect, named as 67-year-old Zhao Chunli, in connection with the shooting, Pine said.

The shootings are being treated as related, although the connection between the locations was not immediately clear. Pine said the suspect was employed at one of the businesses and called him a “disgruntled worker”.

The San Mateo county sheriff’s office said shortly before 5pm that there was “no ongoing threat to the community at this time”. Aerial television images showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses.

The shooting followed the killing of 11 people over the weekend at a ballroom dance hall in the southern California city of Monterey Park, near Los Angeles. It also comes on the heels of a shooting in California’s Central Valley last week, where six people, including an infant, were killed in the small town of Goshen.

“We are sickened by today’s tragedy in Half Moon Bay,” Pine said in a statement. “We have not even had time to grieve for those lost in the terrible shooting in Monterey Park. Gun violence must stop.”

Other public figures spoke out in shock about the back-to-back killings. “Two hours ago I joined my colleagues on the Capitol steps for a vigil for the victims of the shooting in Monterey Park,” tweeted Marc Berman, a member of the California state assembly. Before we’ve even had a chance to mourn them, there is yet another mass shooting – this time in Half Moon Bay. In my district.”

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, described it as “tragedy upon tragedy”.

“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,” the governor tweeted.

More details soon …