8 killed in Southern California salon shooting

[troung]

He will suck air for the next thirty years...

8 killed in Southern California salon shooting
APBy GILLIAN FLACCUS - Associated Press | AP – 10 mins ago

8 killed in Southern California salon shooting - Yahoo! News
SEAL BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A 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 truck and drove away from Salon Meritage after opening fire. A suspect was stopped by officers about a half-mile 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 by authorities.

Friends of the salon owner said the gunman was the ex-husband of a stylist who worked there. Bowles would only say, "There may be something to the motive as to a relationship with somebody in the salon, that is our assumption." He declined to elaborate later.

Kimberly Criswell, who owns a salon just two doors down from the scene of the shootings, said she and her customers and employees heard gunshots, and her receptionist saw a man through a window as he was shot in a parking lot.

"There was like a pop, pop and my receptionist screamed, 'he just shot that man' and we all ran into the bathroom and locked the door,'" Criswell 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 man, in handcuffs, was 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.

The man was cooperative when officers, working from a description of the shooter, stopped him near the salon, Bowles said.

Shortly after he was arrested, police arrived at a house on Melody Lane in nearby Huntington Beach and escorted two women to a white car and then roped off the house with crime scene tape. Neighbors identified photos of the alleged shooter as their neighbor Scott. The house is registered to Scott Dekraai, and one of the licensed cosmetologists at the salon was Michelle Dekraai.

Kari Salveson of Los Alamitos, who attended a service for the victims at SeaCoast Grace Church in Seal Beach, said she had known Michelle Dekraai for several years and was aware that she and her ex-husband were involved in a bitter custody dispute over their son.

She said Michelle Dekraai made her every visit to the salon special.

"She could gab away. She was one of those girlfriends you could never get enough of. She made you smile and she made you laugh," Salveson said.

In Huntington Beach, people were shocked to learn that one of the friendliest men in the neighborhood had been arrested for the shootings.

Dekraai's neighbors described him as a friendly man who invited them over for pool parties at the house he'd lived in for about six years. They said he doted on his son, playing catch with the boy in his yard.

Neighbors said they were aware Dekraai was in a custody battle with his ex-wife over their son, who neighbors said is 7 or 8 years old.

"It was a very difficult battle and he was trying to get more time" with his son, said Jo Cornhall, who lives across the street from Dekraai.

Next-door neighbor Stephanie Malchow, 29, last saw Dekraai on Tuesday morning when he called out as she was leaving for work and said, "Hey neighbor, how's it going? Have a great day."

She was shocked when she saw the photo of the stocky man with thinning hair being detained by Seal Beach police.

"I'm like, no, not this neighbor, no way, he's the nicest guy ever," Malchow said.

Dekraai married his current wife two or three years ago in his backyard, said Malchow, who attended the wedding.

"He seemed very happy, he was just so happy he found someone new who loved his son," she said.

Dekraai walked with a limp after a tug boat accident that killed a fellow tug boat operator about two miles off the coast in 2007. Cornhall said he uses a brace for his leg.

Police responding to a report of shots fired at Salon Meritage found six people dead and three wounded. Two of the wounded later 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 known if he was the one person who survived.

Police were still trying to determine the sequence of events inside the shop. They wouldn't say what type of weapon was used or if the gunman used more than one.

"We're unsure at this point if he shot from the entrance and people, as they were shot, ran in seeking cover or seeking shelter, but we have fatalities throughout the salon," Bowles told reporters at a news conference outside the business.

He said the salon was busy at the time, with every hair-dressing station in operation.

Two former salon employees told The Associated Press the gunman's ex-wife was a stylist at the salon and that the couple had gone through a bitter divorce.

"They had been having bitter problems for years and I guess he just went in there and started shooting," said Lydia Sosa, who left Salon Meritage to open her own business but remained close with its owner, Randy Fannin. So did Sosa's business partner, Tammy Hetzel, who said the couple's problems were well-known among employees.

Cindy Spinosa, 51, who works at a nearby business, said she heard a siren around the time of the shooting.

"After that one of my co-workers got a phone call from her nephew," Spinosa said. "He was outdoors when the suspect got into his truck and took off."

The rampage rattled the community and people who witnessed the shooting and its aftermath. More than four hours later, a police officer escorted a woman who was crying and shaking past crime-scene tape and to her car.

"It's a little disarming," she said. "This is such a quiet community. We don't expect things like this."

Relatives of victims were taken to a nearby spiritual center.

Seal Beach has seen just one other homicide in the past four years, and Bowles said Wednesday's killings were the greatest tragedy to ever strike the seaside town.

"Seal Beach is a small, safe community. We don't experience these things, ever," he said.

The normally quiet community of about 25,000 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 are occupied by the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.

The city is also home to numerous salons, Criswell said, and most employees know each other.

"A lot of these people have worked together for years and they loved working there," she said of the people at Salon Meritage.

___

Associated Press writers John Rogers and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles and Amy Taxin in Huntington Beach contributed to this report.

[troung]

They are seeking the death penalty - why bother - he will die of old age because the elites of the state chose not to apply it...

Prosecutor: Revenge was motive in salon massacre
APBy AMY TAXIN - Associated Press | AP – 9 hrs ago
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Prosecutor: Revenge was motive in salon massacre - Yahoo! News

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Prosecutors said it was revenge and a desire to kill his ex-wife that drove a man to go on a deadly shooting rampage at a Southern California salon, leaving eight people dead and another critically wounded.

Shaking with emotion at a news conference Friday, Orange County's top prosecutor Tony Rackauckas vowed to seek the death penalty against the lone suspect Scott Dekraai as details emerged about the grisly scene at Salon Meritage.

First, Dekraai wrapped himself in body armor and armed himself with three handguns, prosecutors said. Then, he burst into the salon where his ex-wife worked — their 8-year-old son waiting at his school for one of them to pick him up.

Over two minutes, Dekraai moved methodically through the room, shooting his victims in the head and chest. Prosecutors said he wanted revenge against his ex-wife with whom he fought over the custody of their son.

"That little boy's a victim," said Rackauckas, pausing to compose himself. "Now his mother has been murdered, and he has to grow up knowing that his dad is a mass-murderer. So what kind of sick, twisted fatherly love might that be?"

Dekraai appeared briefly in court Friday afternoon, where angry friends and relatives of the victims screamed insults. One person shouted, "I hate you."

Superior Court Judge Erick L. Larsh ordered a medical review after Dekraai's attorney said his client wasn't getting his needed antipsychotic medication while he is held in jail without bail. Attorney Robert Curtis also said he would likely request that the trial be moved out of the area.

Prosecutors often spend time weighing mitigating and extenuating circumstances before deciding to seek the death penalty. Rackackas said he reached his decision in less than 48 hours because there was no reason to look for such factors in this case.

"There are some cases that are so depraved, so callous and so malignant that there is only one punishment that might have any chance of fitting the crime," said Rackauckas, the Orange County district attorney.

The crime, the worst in Seal Beach's 96-year history, has shaken the tight-knit seaside city of 24,000 that many residents call Mayberry by the Sea. Until this week, it had only one homicide in four years. The crime reported most often last year was larceny.

After a final phone conversation with his ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, on Wednesday morning, authorities say, Dekraai drove to Salon Meritage in downtown Seal Beach, where he knew she would be working.

Click image to see more photos


Reuters/Lori Shepler

During a two-minute span, authorities say, he gunned down eight people in the salon and another outside in the parking lot. One person survived and is hospitalized in critical condition. The wounded person, 73-year-old Harriet Stretz, was having her hair done by her daughter, Laura Lee Elody, who was killed.

As people ran out of the building screaming or hid in adjacent rooms or simply lay on the floor attempting to play dead, the onslaught continued, with Dekraai only stopping to reload.

When he was done, the gunman walked out of the salon and, encountering a man in a parked car, shot him to death and drove away.

In a 911 call soon after the shooting, a construction worker who was across the street provides a physical description that matches Dekraai's appearance, calling him a large white man who weighs maybe 300 pounds.

"He was willing to end any life in his path, and he did," Rackauckas said.

Police pulled over Dekraai a short distance away, and he surrendered without resisting. Rackauckas called the killings cruel, merciless and methodical, adding they had nothing to do with love for Dekraai's son, who friends said the 41-year-old former tugboat operator doted on.

Dekraai and Fournier split up in 2006 and divorced the following year. The two had been involved in an increasingly acrimonious custody fight over their son ever since Dekraai had asked a judge for "final decision making authority" when it came to matters involving their son's education and his medical and psychological treatment.

Both parents were in court the day before the shootings for a custody hearing that was continued until December.

Fournier's attorney, John Cate, said a recent evaluation by a court-appointed psychologist concluded the couple's custody agreement, which gave each parent close to equal time with their son, should remain the way it was.

But Cate added that the report concluded neither parent was behaving as they should have.

"He found they were not co-parenting. In fact, they were parallel parenting and doing a poor job of it at that," Cate said of the psychologist's conclusions. "It led to a great deal of mistrust."

Despite the report, he said both Dekraai and Fournier were well mannered in court on Tuesday.

Cate also said one of the victims of the shooting, Christy Wilson, was a co-worker of Fournier's who spoke with the court-appointed psychologist. He speculated that might have led to Wilson being targeted by the gunman.

"She was a good friend of Michelle's and she paid the price for it, apparently," the lawyer said.

Throughout the custody battle, Dekraai and Fournier traded serious allegations, each calling the other an unfit parent.

Dekraai said in court papers that Fournier had a drinking problem, once showed up drunk at their son's Little League game and didn't keep a close watch on the boy.

Fournier responded in court papers that Dekraai was mentally unstable, had been violent and abusive to her when they were married and had once called 911 and threatened to kill himself and others.

Dekraai's stepfather, Leroy Hinmon, had gotten a temporary restraining order against him in 2007 after he said Dekraai attacked him. The order required Dekraai to surrender his guns, but it had long since expired.

Cate said Dekraai acknowledged to the court-appointed psychologist that he had been diagnosed as bipolar and was taking pain medication for a leg injury.

Shortly after their separation, Dekraai was badly injured in a tugboat accident as he tried to save a co-worker who was crushed to death when a towline snapped.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's detective who investigated the accident called his actions "heroic." ''He saw her pinned by her towline, and he immediately went to her side to try to assist her," Detective Robert Harris said at the time.

His leg badly mangled, Dekraai was unable to work, and friends and acquaintances have said he was in constant pain since then. He told the court he lived off an insurance settlement and his retirement benefits.

___

Associated Press Writers Gillian Flaccus in Santa Ana, Calif., and John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.