Man Goes On ‘Anger’-Fueled Stabbing Rampage In California: 4 Dead, 2 Wounded

Over a span of about two hours on Wednesday, a man from Garden Grove, California went on a rage-fueled and what appears to be largely random “stabbing and robbing rampage” that left at least four people dead and two wounded.

The suspect, who authorities say is a 33-year-old Hispanic man who lived in an apartment in the Southern California city, was arrested at a 7-Eleven in the nearby city of Santa Ana on Wednesday after police converged on the location, the Associated Press reports. The suspect was holding a knife and a handgun that he had seized from a security guard he had stabbed repeatedly in the store. The suspect dropped both weapons when confronted by police and gave himself up for arrest.

In the preceding two hours, fueled by what police described as “anger” and “hate,” the man allegedly unleashed attacks in at least six locations, robbing several stores and leaving four people dead and two injured, all of whom were also Hispanic. As of late Wednesday, the two people who were injured were in stable condition and expected to survive.

“We know this guy was full of anger and he harmed a lot of people tonight,” said Garden Grove Police Lt. Carl Whitney in a press conference Wednesday reported by AP. The attacks were “random acts of violence,” said Whitney, stating that the suspect “was not involved with any of the victims.”

Whitney said that along with interviewing witnesses, his department was reviewing surveillance footage that shows the suspect “attacking these people and conducting these murders.”

The killing spree appears to have begun at the man’s apartment building, where he killed two men after some form of confrontation. “One man died inside an apartment and another was found wounded on the balcony and died at a hospital,” AP reports.

KABC reports that the suspect “apparently broke into an apartment of one of his neighbors in the complex where he lives,” an incident that was reported just after 4 p.m. “Before police could respond to take a routine burglary report, a new report came in about an hour later of a homicide at the address, police said.”

The suspect went on to allegedly rob a bakery, where the owner says she was spared likely because he believed she was just a customer, an insurance business, where the attacker nonfatally stabbed a 54-year-old female employee multiple times, and a check-cashing business. The attacker also randomly attacked a man pumping gas at a Chevron gas station, stabbing him in the back and nearly “sever[ing]” his nose from his face, Whitney noted.

The attack at the insurance business was witnessed by employees of an alarm company, who watched the shocking incident via a security camera’s livefeed. Whitney said the employees “could see that the female victim was on the ground with blood and multiple injuries.”

The rampage ended at a 7-Eleven in Santa Ana, where detectives had tracked the suspect’s Mercedes and police ordered him to drop his weapons.

UPDATE: Officials: Convicted Felon Arrested For Stabbing Rampage Was Only Free Because Of Liberal Policies

This article has been expanded to include more details about the incident.