Shooting In Tehama County Leaves At Least 5 Dead

Updated 2:54 p.m.

A man killed four people and injured 10 in a shooting rampage this morning in the small community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, southwest of Red Bluff.

Police fatally shot the shooter, bringing the total number of deaths to five. 

Of those being treated at hospitals, two are children who are expected to survive. One child was shot at Rancho Tehama Elementary School; the other while in a car with his mother, who is in critical condition. 

No children are among the dead.

Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said at a 1 p.m. press conference that police received 911 calls from multiple locations starting about 7:52 a.m. Seven different locations are being treated as crime scenes. The only two locations currently identified are Rancho Tehama Elementary School and Bobcat and Fawn Lanes.

While the timeline of events has not yet been made clear, police say the shooter stole two vehicles during the course of the rampage, first a truck and then a sedan. Police found the shooter with two handguns and a semi-automatic weapon. It is not yet known whether he was licensed to carry.

Police say there is no known motive for the killing spree — it appears to be random — and that the shooter had previously been convicted in a domestic violence incident.

We have reporters out in the field and will bring you information as we gather it. Earlier today, NSPR reporter Adia White, who is on the scene, described a chaotic situation at a checkpoint near the entrance to Rancho Tehama School, where people were gathered in hopes of getting information.

She spoke to one man who said that his nephew, between 8 and 10 years old, had been shot in the shoulder. The man said he didn’t know yet whether his nephew was OK or what hospital he had been taken to.

The man said he was shocked that this would happen in his small, peaceful community, but watching recent shootings across the country in the news, he sees the local shooting as happening within the context of something larger.