2 dead, suspect identified in random California shootings

BANNING At least two people were dead Saturday, three others were injured and an unidentified man was in custody after a series of random shootings, authorities said.

James Paul Diaz, 34, of Hemet, was arrested and booked for investigation of two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and other charges stemming from Saturday’s shooting spree, police said in a statement. The victim said she was shot at by a man in his 30s in a white SUV and provided the first visual description of the suspect to police.

Police said the first shooting happened when Diaz took aim at a man and a woman in a parked auto on John Street.

Officers in the neighboring city of Beaumont stopped a white SUV matching the vehicle involved in the shootings and found a weapon inside, Diaz said.

During the chaos of the attacks, police asked parent volunteers at the nearby Nicolet Middle School’s youth program to conduct an informal lockdown of the 45 students inside, Diaz said.

The suspect fled the scene, but was arrested in Beaumont while driving a white Suburban, similar to the one talked about by a few of the witnesses. The 18th-century Spanish friar brought the Catholic faith to California.

The two victims have not been identified.

Pelegrin had a second shock soon after police and medical personnel arrived when an officer told the clerk that a victim had been shot and killed a short distance from his home. The woman who was shot at was not hit, Diaz said, but suffered injuries to her face and arms from broken glass.At 11:53 a.m., a man by the same description assaulted a man in the parking lot at the am/pm market at 22nd and Ramsey streets, 2 1/2 miles west. The incident was caught on surveillance video.

Then about 15 minutes later, police found a body in a pickup truck that crashed at 200 E. Lincoln St. However, police were unsure if this was linked to the shootings.

The suspected gunman has been identified only as an Hispanic male in his 30s.

About an hour after police announced that a suspect had been caught, tensions rose again when police received reports that someone with a gun was threatening customers at an Arco gas station convenience store along the freeway in Banning.

The names of the victims were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Police said they couldn’t speculate on the reasoning behind the attacks as of 5:30 p.m., as they had yet to interview the man, but noted that his desperate pleas to find his children.