Gunman opened fire Wednesday in a busy hair salon, killing eight people

 

Gunman opened fire Wednesday in a busy hair salon, killing eight people and critically wounding another while leaving bodies scattered throughout the business in a normally sedate Southern California beach community. The gunman got into a car and drove away from Salon Meritage after opening fire about 1:30 p.m. He was stopped by officers about a half-mile (kilometre) away and surrendered without incident while saying he had multiple weapons with him, police Sgt. Steve Bowles said. His name and those of the victims were not immediately released. Police were struggling to determine what prompted the shootings. "There may be something to the motive as to a relationship with somebody in the salon, that is our assumption," Bowles said. Glenn Zachman, who owns a video news-gathering service, said he arrived at the scene of the arrest shortly after police and saw they had placed plastic bags over the man's hands to preserve possible gunshot residue. He also saw a bulletproof vest on the back of a patrol car but didn't know if the man, dressed in a button-down shirt and pants, had been wearing it. The suspect was co-operative when officers, working from a description of the shooter, stopped him near the salon, Bowles added. TV news video showed the man, in handcuffs, being placed in a patrol car and taken away about two-and-a-half hours after the shooting. A new white pickup truck that was believed to be his was parked on the modest residential street with its doors open. Police responding to a report of shots fired found six people dead and three wounded. Two of the wounded died at a hospital. The other person was listed in critical condition. Bowles said the victims were scattered throughout the salon. One wounded person, a man, was found outside the building. It wasn't clear if he was trying to flee when he was shot or if he was the one wounded survivor. Police were still trying to determine the sequence of events inside the shop. Bowles said the salon was busy at the time, with every hair-dressing station in operation. He didn't know what type of weapon was used or if the man used more than one. Salon employee Lorainne Bruielle, who wasn't working Wednesday, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram the gunman was the husband of another employee. Bruielle said she talked to the husband of one of the employees involved, who said one worker locked herself in the salon's facial room and was unharmed while another man locked himself in a bathroom but was wounded. Relatives of victims were being taken to a nearby spiritual centre. "Obviously, a crime of this magnitude is something that Seal Beach is not familiar with," Bowles told reporters. Seal Beach has seen just one other homicide in the past four years. The killings on Wednesday stunned this normally quiet community of about 25,000 that boasts on its website that it has "retained its quaint, small-town atmosphere" since it was founded in 1915. The beachfront city is home to Leisure World, a gated senior citizen community of 9,000 people, as well as the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station military complex. Two-thirds of the city's 13.23 square miles (34.27 square kilometres) are occupied by the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.