Chunli Zhao, a 66-year-old farm worker from Half Moon Bay accused of killing seven of his co-workers in a “workplace violence” case, was charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. on Wednesday.
Zhao was scheduled to make his first court appearance on Wednesday, but it has been postponed until February 16, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said at a news conference Wednesday. His attorneys did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Wagstaffe shared that prosecutors did not request bail as Zhao is not a US citizen and has “plenty of reasons to run.”
Chunli Zhao appears for his arraignment in San Mateo Superior Court in Redwood City, California on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
(Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group via AP, Pool)
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe addresses the media outside the Hall of Justice following Chunli Zhao’s arraignment, Wednesday, January 25, 2023, in Redwood City, California.
(Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
At the press conference, Wagstaffe declined to share any additional details about the motive for the murder of Zhao’s co-workers, saying he wanted to keep the details out of the public eye to ensure a fair trial. Sheriff’s officials have said it was workplace violence.
In addition to seven counts of murder, Zhao was charged with one count of attempted murder, enhanced use of firearms and one count of multiple murder special circumstances indictment, Wagstaffe said.
HALF MOON BAY, CALIFORNIA, DEADLY FARM SHOOTINGS: WHO IS SUSPECTED OF CHUNLI ZHAO?
Authorities believe Zhao acted alone Monday when he entered a mushroom farm where he worked in Half Moon Bay, shooting and killing four people and seriously wounding a fifth. He then drove to a nearby farm where he had previously worked and killed three more people, said Eamonn Allen, a sheriff’s spokesman.
About two hours after deputies responded to the two separate shooting scenes, authorities said Zhao was located at 4:40 p.m. Monday in his vehicle in the parking lot of the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office, where a deputy stopped him without incident.
Zhao, a farm worker accused of killing seven people in consecutive shootings at two Northern California mushroom farms, was charged Wednesday with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
(Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group via AP, Pool)
Chunli Zhao appears for his arraignment in San Mateo Superior Court in Redwood City, California on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
(Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group via AP, Pool)
The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office named six of the victims: Zhishen Liu, 73, of San Francisco; Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, of Moss Beach, California; Aixiang Zhang, 74, of San Francisco; Qizhong Cheng, 66, of Half Moon Bay; Jingzhi Lu, 64, of Half Moon Bay; and Yetao Bing, 43, whose place of origin is unknown. Charging documents identify José Romero Pérez as the other person killed and Pedro Romero Pérez as the eighth victim, who survived the shooting.
All of the victims are believed to be daycare workers and were of Asian and Hispanic descent, authorities said.
Servando Martínez Jiménez said that his brother Marciano Martínez Jiménez, one of the victims, was a delivery man and manager of one of the farms. He never mentioned Zhao or said anything about problems with other workers.
“He was a good person. He was polite and kind to everyone. He never had any problems with anyone. I don’t understand why all this happened,” Martínez Jiménez said in Spanish.
It would not have been Zhao’s first workplace rage, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In 2013, Zhao was charged with threatening to split a co-worker’s head in with a knife and separately trying to suffocate the man with a pillow, the Chronicle reported, based on court documents.
SHOOTING IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA LEAVES AT LEAST SEVEN DEAD, OFFICIALS SAY: SUSPECT IN CUSTODY
The two were roommates and worked at a restaurant, and the man, identified as Jingjiu Wang, filed a temporary restraining order against Zhao that was granted but is no longer in effect.
San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Chairman Dave Pine described Zhao as a “disgruntled worker,” KRON reported.
Zhao is from China and has lived in the United States for at least a dozen years, Wagstaffe said. She had legal papers to live in the country at one point and investigators are determining if they are still valid, Wagstaffe said. They were also looking into her previous contact with the police.
Zhao, 66, made his first court appearance.
(Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group via AP, Pool)
According to The Independent, Zhao worked at the mushroom farm for decades.
The Half Moon Bay bloodshed was the third mass shooting in California in eight days. on saturday, suspicious Huu Can Tran he allegedly opened fire at the Lai Lai Ballroom, a dance hall in Monterey Park, killing 11 people and wounding nine others, according to police. It happened before the Chinese New Year.
On January 16, a teenage mother, her baby and four other people were murdered in a home in California’s Central Valley.
“Only in America do we see this kind of carnage, this kind of chaos, this kind of disruption to communities and lives and trust and a sense of safety and belonging,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday after the back-to-back Mass. . shootings
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe leaves the San Mateo Hall of Justice following the arraignment of Chunli Zhao in Redwood City, Calif., on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
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The new year has brought six mass murders in the US in less than three weeks, representing 39 deaths. Three have hit California since Jan. 16, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.
Danielle Wallace of Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
