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Suspect in Southern California shooting had a relationship with victims, police say

At least four people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed Wednesday evening inside a commercial office complex, authorities said

Four people, including one child, were killed during a shooting on March 31 at an office building in Orange, Calif. The suspect has been taken into custody. (Video: Reuters)

ORANGE, Calif. — At least four people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed in a shooting in Southern California on Wednesday evening inside a commercial office complex, authorities said.

At a news conference Thursday, officials said the suspect and the victims had a “business and personal” relationship. They said they are still investigating the suspect’s motives. Officials said the suspect used a semiautomatic weapon, but did not specify what kind.

Officials said the suspect is a 44-year-old named Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez. He is in the hospital in critical but stable condition with a gunshot wound. It is unclear if he shot himself or was shot by police.

An additional victim, a woman who is in critical condition, is also being treated at the hospital, said Lt. Jennifer Amat, a spokeswoman for the Orange Police Department.

At least four people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed during a shooting on March 31 in Orange, Calif. (Video: The Washington Post)

Police received reports about shots fired around 5:30 p.m. local time at a two-story building in Orange that houses multiple commercial offices. Officers responding to the scene encountered active gunfire and fired back, Amat said, noting at a news conference late on Wednesday that the shooting took place throughout the complex.

On Thursday, officials said that when police officers arrived at the scene, they found the gates to the office park locked from the inside and had to force their way in with bolt cutters.

The incident follows two mass shootings in the past two weeks: one at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, including six Asian women, and another at a Boulder, Colo., supermarket in which 10 people were killed.

“I’m 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 as we continue to learn more,” Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) said on Twitter.

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California state Sen. Dave Min (D) said he was “heartbroken” to hear about the shooting, which took place just after he took his daughter to a medical appointment only a few miles away.

“This is the America we live in today,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s an America where we have become so inured to the constant drumbeat of gun violence that we all just wearily accept the idea that any of us, at any time, for any reason, can be the victim of gun violence.”

He pledged to push for measures to reduce gun violence, adding: “Enough is enough.”

The incident marked the deadliest shooting in Orange in more than two decades, officials said. In 1997, a former state highway employee killed his former boss and three co-workers at a maintenance yard after he was fired. The man was later killed by police.

“Orange is a very safe city,” Amat said. “We don’t have stuff like this that happens very often.”

The squat, beige complex where the shooting took place is located in the northern half of Orange County, near the intersection of two main thoroughfares. On one side of the building are single-family homes, with an auto body shop on the other side of the street.

Camilo Akli, 28, who lives near the complex and frequently walks his dog around the neighborhood, said he has seen small real estate companies and insurance agencies “come and go” from the building, which has always seemed quiet.

“I’ve walked around there for years,” he said.

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