California shooting tied to domestic dispute: police

Bakersfield : A man who killed five people, including his wife, in California before taking his own life had been in the midst of a contentious divorce, authorities said Thursday.

“It appears that the suspect targeted each of his victims,” Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a news conference in Bakersfield, where Wednesday’s deadly rampage took place. He said the shooter, identified as Javier Casarez, 54, was in divorce proceedings. The tragedy unfolded after Casarez arrived at a trucking company in southeast Bakersfield at around 5:18 pm, accompanied by his wife, Petra Casarez, Youngblood said.

The couple confronted a man at the business. Javier Casarez shot the man and then turned the gun on his wife and shot her. He then chased another man and gunned him down too, Youngblood said. Casarez then went to a house where he shot a 31-year-old woman and her father. Youngblood said Casarez carjacked a vehicle with a woman and child inside and let them go, telling the woman he was “not a bad guy,” before driving off.