SAN MATEO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — Late January, a farmworker in Half Moon Bay, California, went on a shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of seven people, according to reports.
The farmworker, identified as 66-year-old Chunli Zhao, had worked at both California Terra Garden and Concord Farms, according to The Western Journal.
The San Mateo County District Attorney, Steve Wagstaffe, said Zhao was driven to the killings by his supervisor demanding that he pay $100 to repair a forklift that had been damaged at work, according to the Bay Area News Group.
Zhao maintained that the collision between his forklift and another worker’s bulldozer was not his fault. The farmworker reportedly vented to his supervisor about the bill, but his complaints fell on deaf ears. After the encounter with his supervisor, Zhao allegedly shot and killed him and a co-worker.
He then went on to shoot three more workers at California Terra Garden, killing two, and three former co-workers at Concord Farms, killing all three.
Zhao was interviewed in a courthouse on Thursday and told KNTV-TV that he committed the shootings because he was bullied and worked long hours on the farms, according to The Western Journal. He also claimed that his complaints went ignored.
Zhao told the television station that he had been in the U.S. for 11 years and held a green card. He lived in Half Moon Bay with his wife and has a 40-year-old daughter in China.
The names of the victims have been released by the coroner’s office and include Zhishen Liu, Marciano Martinez Jimenez, Aixiang Zhang, Qizhong Cheng, Jingzhi Lu, and Yetao Bing. The eighth victim, Pedro Romero Perez, survived the shooting.
