Child among 4 dead in shooting at California office building

LOS ANGELES: A child was among four people killed on Wednesday (Mar 31) in a shooting at a Southern California office building that left a fifth victim and the gunman critically wounded, police said.

The violence in the city of Orange, south-east of Los Angeles, was the nation's third mass shooting in less than three weeks.

When police arrived at the two-storey structure at around 5.30pm, shots were being fired, Orange Police Lieutenant Jennifer Amat said. Officers opened fire and the suspect was taken to a hospital, Amat said.

It's unclear if the suspect suffered a self-inflicted wound or was shot by police. Police provided no details on the victims other than to say one was a child and a woman was critically wounded.

In a tweet, California Governor Gavin Newsom called the killings “horrifying and heartbreaking”.

“Our hearts are with the families impacted by this terrible tragedy tonight,” he wrote.

United States Representative Katie Porter, a California Democrat whose district includes the city of Orange, said on Twitter that she was “deeply saddened”.

Amat had no information about what may have prompted the attack. She said the shooting occurred on both levels of the building.

Signs outside indicated a handful of businesses were located there, including an insurance office, a financial consulting firm, a legal services business and a phone repair store.

People gathered outside the building after the shooting hoping to get word about loved ones.

Charlie Espinoza was also outside the building, and told the Orange County Register that he couldn’t reach his fiance, who works for a medical billing company.

Cody Lev, who lives across the street from the office building, told the newspaper he heard three loud pops that were spaced out, then three more. There was silence, then he heard numerous shots, followed by sirens and then more shots.

A Facebook livestream posted by a resident who lives near the building appeared to show officers carrying a motionless person from the building and officers providing aid to another person.

The killings follow a mass shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, last week that left 10 dead. A week before that, six Asian women were among eight people killed in three Atlanta-area spas.

The city of Orange is about 48km from Los Angeles and home to about 140,000 people. Amat said the shooting was the worst in the city since December 1997, when a gunman armed with an assault rifle attacked a California Department of Transportation maintenance yard.

Arturo Reyes Torres, 41, an equipment operator who had been fired six weeks earlier, killed four people and wounded others, including a police officer, before police killed him.