Four Killed in Shooting at Office Building in Orange, Suspect Hospitalized

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Department. Kimberly Edds, the public information officer for the Orange County

District

ORANGE (CNS) - A woman wounded in a shooting at an office building in Orange that left four people dead, including a child, was hospitalized in critical condition today.

The suspect was also hospitalized in critical condition. It was unclear whether he was shot by police or the wounds were self-inflicted, Kimberly Edds, the public information officer for the Orange County District's Attorney's Office, told City News Service.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office investigates instances of law enforcement officers firing their weapons in the line of duty.

A firearm was recovered at the scene, according to Orange Police Department Lt. Jen Amat.

The shooting was reported at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday on the second floor of the office building at 202 W. Lincoln Ave., near Glassell Avenue, Amat said. It was unclear in which business the shots were fired.

The shooting drew a heavy law enforcement presence with more than a dozen police cars and a SWAT vehicle at the building, including fire engines from multiple fire departments, The Orange County Register reported.

A motive for the shooting and the name of the suspect were not immediately available.

Ages, genders and names of the victims were not disclosed.

Relatives with questions about loved ones who may have been victims of

the shooting were asked to go to the Orange Police Department.

``I can tell you that we haven't had an incident like this in the city of Orange since 1997, our Caltrans shooting,'' Amat said at a briefing around 10 p.m. ``It's such a tragedy for the victims, their families, our community and our police department.

``So our condolences, thoughts and prayers go out to all of them.''

Five people were killed and two others wounded in that 1997 shooting after former a state employee, Arturo Reyes Torres, 41, of Huntington Beach, opened fire at the Caltrans facility near Batavia Street and Taft Avenue.

Torres was shot and killed by police a short distance away from the maintenance yard.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called Wednesday's shooting ``horrifying and heartbreaking.''

``Our hearts are with the families impacted by this terrible tragedy, Newsom tweeted.

Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, whose district includes Orange, tweeted that she was ``deeply saddened by reports of a mass shooting in Orange County,

and I'm continuing to keep victims and their loved ones in my thoughts.''

Wednesday's shooting was the third since March 16 where at least four people were killed after it had been a year since a shooting of that scale, according to The Violence Project, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based research center known for its mass shooter database.

A gunman shot and killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, at three spas in the Atlanta area March 16. A man shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado on March 22.

The organization defines a mass shooting as one where four or more victims are killed with firearms -- not including the offender or offenders --in a public location, such as a workplace, school or restaurant, when the perpetrator or perpetrators selects the victims somewhat indiscriminately.

The definition excludes domestic shootings, gang-, drug- and organized- crime-related shootings.

Copyright 2021, City News Service, Inc.

CNS-04-01-2021 00:37



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