A gunman's deadly rampage through rural Rancho Tehama on Tuesday was stopped when police rammed his vehicle and exchanged shots in a fierce gun battle, authorities said.
"The suspect was actually shooting at the police vehicle, back at them, the officer rammed the vehicle, forced it off the road, an exchange of gunfire — resulting in the shooter's death," said Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston.
The shooting ended what authorities described as a 45-minute attack through Rancho Tehama, a quiet reserve about 120 miles northwest of downtown Sacramento.
The gunman at one point terrorized a local elementary school. Witnesses said he crashed through the school's gates with his truck and opened fire, spraying walls and classrooms with bullets. Teachers and other adults on campus frantically got the students under desks.
Before the rampage was over, five people were dead, including the gunman, and at least 10 were wounded.
It could have been much worse if local teachers had not been so quick to respond to the threat.
Courtesy of NBC News:
No children were killed in the shooting spree that began at shortly before 8 a.m. PT in the community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, about 130 miles north of Sacramento, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.
The rampage could have been worse, Johnston said, had not the staff at the school heard gunshots around a quarter-mile away and initiated a lockdown.
"The shooter literally took his vehicle and rammed their fence and gate, entered the grounds on foot with a semiautomatic rifle," Johnston said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
"It appears that because he couldn't make access to any of the rooms — they were locked — that he gave it up and re-entered the vehicle and then went on his killing spree and took it to the streets of Rancho Tehama,” Johnston said. "So I really want to say that the quick action of those school officials, there is no doubt in my mind based on the video that I saw, saved countless lives and children."
I say it all the time, but it bears repeating, teachers are the true American heroes. And it should not take a terrible incident like this to remind us of that fact.
As it turns out this lunatic was known by police for being a very violent offender, and was about to go on trial for past crimes:
The gunman who killed four in a sprawling rampage Tuesday before being fatally shot by police was about to go on trial for stabbing and robbing women in his Northern California community.
Kevin Jansen Neal, 43, was charged with assault in January. Little is known about the incident, except that Neal was charged with assault for shooting at two female neighbors through a wooden fence while they were walking. Neal then "jumped the fence, confronted the women, stabbed one and took a cellphone from the other," Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen told Red Bluff Daily News. Authorities said one of the four individuals killed Tuesday was a female previously targeted by Neal in his neighborhood.
Neal, 43, was arrested again in February for assault with a deadly weapon, battery, crimes against an elder or dependent adult and discharging his firearm with gross negligence, among other charges outlined in Red Bluff Police Department logs. Neal was scheduled to stand trial on January 11, 2018, for the assault against the neighborhood women, with trials beginning in December.
And yet he was still able to get his hands on an AR-15 Bushmaster rifle as well as several other firearms.
And why not? This is America ain't it?
Investigators later found the body of Neal's wife hidden under the floorboards in his house, which brings the death toll up to five.
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