Man 'Full of Anger' Kills 4 in Southern California 'Machete' Rampage
A Southern California man went on a rampage of stabbing and robbery Wednesday that left four victims dead and two wounded, according to news reports.
The Associated Press reported the unidentified 33-year-old man was arrested about 6:30 p.m. when he was spotted leaving a 7-Eleven he had just robbed in Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles.
The man had stabbed a guard at the store and taken the man’s gun. The guard, who later died at a hospital, was the final victim of a spree that started about two hours earlier in the nearby town of Garden Grove.
According to the AP, Garden Grove police Lt. Carl Whitney told reporters the man’s motives appeared to be “robbery, hate homicide.”
“We know this guy was full of anger and he harmed a lot of people tonight,” he said.
The suspect and all the victims were Hispanic, the AP reported.
The swath of terror started when the man apparently stabbed two other men at his Garden Grove apartment building about 4 p.m.
One of the men died at the scene. The other died later being treated at a hospital, Whitney said.
The man’s other targets included a bakery and an insurance office, the AP reported.
No one was injured in the bakery robbery, which occurred about 4:30 p.m., according to KCAL-TV.
A 55-year-old woman who worked at the insurance office was stabbed several times. The attacker was armed with “some sort of machete knives,” Whitney said.
The woman “was very brave,” Whitney said, according to the AP. “She fought as best she could.”
The office’s alarm company saw the attack on a video feed and notified police.
“They could see that the female victim was on the ground with blood and multiple injuries,” Whitney said.
Shortly after the insurance company robbery, a man pumping gas at a Chevron station was attacked for “no good reason,” Whitney told reporters, according to the AP.
That man was stabbed in the back and his nose was nearly cut from his face. Bystanders rushed to help him, Whitney said.
Both that man and the insurance office employee survived.
The rampage came to an end when detectives spotted the man’s vehicle outside the 7-Eleven in Santa Ana.
They then saw him leaving the store with a machete and the handgun he’d taken from the guard.
When police ordered him to drop the weapons and surrender, he complied, the AP reported.
Police then learned that a male employee of a nearby Subway restaurant had been fatally stabbed during a robbery, according to the AP.
His name was not released pending more investigation.
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