A crazy midday shooting at a busy hair salon left eight people dead and one in critical condition.w The reason behind the shootings are still unclear. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The motives of the shooting are unclear, but police said they arrested a man in a white pick-up truck at a traffic stop a half-mile from the shooting scene and seized multiple weapons. The injured victims were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Salon employee Lorainne Bruielle, who wasn’t working Wednesday, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram the gunman was the husband of another employee.
Bruielle said she talked to the husband of one of the employees involved, who said one employee locked herself in the salon’s facial room and was unharmed while another man locked himself in a bathroom but was wounded.
Six victims were found dead inside Salon Meritage, located at Seal Beach, Calif. Two other victims died while being transported to the hospital and one remains in critical condition.
“We’re unsure at this point if he shot from the entrance and people, as they were shot, ran in seeking cover or seeking shelter, but we have fatalities throughout the salon,” Sgt. Steve Bowles told reporters at a news conference outside the business. “From my observation, it did look like people were seeking shelter at the time.”
The shooting was reported at 1:21 p.m. local time at the quiet, beachfront city about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The city had only one homicide last year and none during the previous three years, according to statistics compiled by the Police Department.
“It just caught everyone off guard and people started running outside to see what was happening,” Zach Benson, who was working at a nearby restaurant, told KNBC-TV. “It was a very bizarre scene.”
Several visibly distressed people stood near the scene talking on cellphones or to police. They declined to be interviewed.
“All I heard was a siren and then after that one of my co-workers got a phone call from her nephew. He was outdoors when the suspect got into his truck and took off,” said Cindy Spinosa, 51, who works at a nearby business.
“It’s a little disarming,” she said. “This is such a quiet community. We don’t expect things like this.”
