TUSTIN, Calif.–Three people were killed today when a gunman went on a rampage through multiple Orange County cities, beginning with the shooting death of a woman in a Ladera Ranch home and continuing with two other killings during carjackings in Santa Ana and Tustin before the suspect committed suicide in Orange.
The violence began at about 4:45 a.m., when a woman was fatally shot in a home on Red Leaf Lane in Ladera Ranch, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino. The suspect fled the scene in an SUV, and apparently tried to carjack a number of vehicles in the Tustin area.
Around 5:30 a.m., Tustin police received a report of a carjacking and shooting at Red Hill Avenue and Nisson Road, where a person was wounded, but was expected to survive, Amormino said.
The suspect was said to have two “long guns,” Tustin police Lt. Paul Garaven said.
Soon after, a man was fatally shot in a carjacking on Village Way near the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway in Santa Ana, authorities said.
“Reports are that he got out of the vehicle, confronted our victim who was in his BMW … he orders him out of the vehicle, walks him to the side of the curb and executes our victim,” Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
The gunman got into the victim’s vehicle and drove back into Tustin, where another carjacking occurred near the Micro Center at Edinger Avenue, police said.
“It was also a call of a man with a gun,” Garaven said. “We arrived on scene. There (were) two victims.
One victim is deceased. The other victim suffered a gunshot wound and is being treated for those injuries. Also occurring during the incidents in the city of Tustin were several gunshots that were fired on the freeway while the suspect was driving on the freeway or he had stopped and got out of his freeway and fired rounds at passing motorists.
“We’re still investigating how many more victims we might have. We’ve had three victims come forward since this morning and say they’re a victim of being shot at on the freeway,” Garaven said. “One of the reporting parties had some minor injuries, the other two have only had damage to the their vehicles.”
When police tried to pull over the suspect–described only as a man in his 20s–at east Katella Avenue and north Wanda Road in Orange he shot and killed himself, authorities said.
