A 21-year-old man who was acting erratically opened fire inside a Greyhound bus in northern California, killing a 43-year-old woman and injuring four people before he was arrested, naked, inside a Walmart after getting into a fight, authorities said.
Asaahdi Coleman allegedly started shooting at passengers as they exited the Los Angeles-bound bus after it stopped at a convenience store in the city of Oroville on Wednesday night, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said on Thursday.
“This is a horrific tragedy that was visited upon our community,” he said.
Photo: AP
Police received emergency calls shortly after 7:30pm that someone was shooting inside a bus outside a convenience store in Oroville, about 105km north of Sacramento.
Officials said they recovered a dozen bullet casings on the bus, which had a bullet hole through the windshield.
Detectives later recovered the weapon in a nearby construction site, Honea said.
Moments before the shooting, Coleman, who had boarded the bus in Redding, allegedly told passengers that Los Angeles was a dangerous city and showed them a firearm he was carrying in a satchel, Honea said.
He also got agitated and accused one of them of being an undercover law enforcement officer, the sheriff said.
He showed “what could best be described as paranoid behavior,” Honea said.
After the shooting, Coleman fled and ran to a Walmart about 800m from the bus and got into a fight with a customer.
After the fight was broken up, he walked away and began taking off his clothes.
He was taken into custody, naked, shortly after, Honea said.
It was not immediately clear whether Coleman has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
He was expected to appear in court yesterday.
The injured include a 32-year-old man who was shot multiple times and was in a critical condition, a 25-year-old pregnant woman who was in critical condition, and an 11-year-old girl in stable condition.
A 38-year-old man was treated for a minor injury and was expected to be released from the hospital soon, Honea said.
Coleman, who has a juvenile criminal record, lives a “somewhat transient life” and is wanted on a warrant out of Alameda County for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said.
Sacramento prosecutors in July last year filed felony charges against Coleman for breaching prohibition of firearm access, court documents showed.
He was released on bail and was due for his next court appearance next month, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Public records showed that Coleman’s last known address was at an apartment complex in Sacramento, the newspaper reported.
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