OROVILLE, Calif. (NewsNation Now) — A shooting on a Greyhound bus in Northern California Wednesday killed one person and injured four others before the suspected shooter was arrested, naked, inside a nearby Walmart, police said.
Officers responded shortly after 7:30 p.m. to multiple 911 calls reporting a shooting on board a bus outside a convenience store in Oroville, a small city about 65 miles north of Sacramento, according to a statement from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Sacramento resident Asaahdi Elijah Coleman, started shooting randomly as people exited the bus.
Officials said they recovered a dozen 9 mm bullet casings on the bus, which had a bullet hole through the windshield.
The wounded include a 32-year-old man who was shot multiple times and is in critical condition, a 25-year-old pregnant woman who is in critical condition and an 11-year-old girl in stable condition. A 38-year-old man was treated for a minor injury and is expected to be released from the hospital soon, Honea said.
It wasn’t the shooter’s first run-in with the law. Sacramento prosecutors filed felony charges against him in July 2021 for violating the prohibition of firearm access, according to court documents. He was released on bail and was due for his next court appearance in March, the Sacramento Bee reported.
On Wednesday, the gunman showed “what could best be described as paranoid behavior,” Honea said.
The shooter, who boarded the bus in Redding, 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.
The man fled before officers arrived at the scene but he later was located and arrested inside a Walmart about about a half-mile away 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.
A similar situation happened on Feb. 3, 2020, when a man opened fire on a Greyhound bus headed from Los Angeles to the Bay Area.
The 2020 shooting killed one person and injured five more, including one passenger who became paralyzed from the chest down, NewsNation’s affiliate station KGET reported.