The backstory of the Half Moon Bay mass shooting in California

Half Moon Bay is up the coast from where I live — back in the day and perhaps still, it had a terrific little cafe right next to the ocean that served superb seafood — so the shooting there caught my eye.

The LA Times has a report by Alexandra E. Petri and Salvador Hernandez that sheds some light on the situation. They write:

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — The man charged with killing seven co-workers in a pair of mass shootings at farms in Half Moon Bay admitted to his role in the deadly shootings in a jailhouse interview Thursday.

Chunli Zhao, 66, spoke to NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang, telling the reporter he had experienced “years of bullying” and working long hours at the farm before he took a semiautomatic handgun and opened fire on his co-workers Monday.

“He admitted that he did do it,” Wang said in the report.

San Mateo County Dist. Atty. Stephen M. Wagstaffe told The Times in an interview that although he could not go into details in the case, Zhao’s comments to the TV station were “consistent with what he told law enforcement.”

In the 15-minute interview, Zhao also said he had been suffering from “some sort of mental illness” and was “not in his right mind” at the time of the shooting.

Zhao said he planned to turn himself in to law enforcement when he drove to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and was writing a note in his car before he was taken into custody.

Wang said Zhao also told her that he regretted the deadly incident.

Zhao’s comments also come as state officials say they have opened investigations into labor and workplace practices at the two sites of Monday’s fatal shootings and cast a spotlight on the lives of California’s farmworkers who often live and work in dangerous conditions.

The investigation comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday visited the beachside community, where he spoke with the victims’ families and co-workers about the deadly shooting and their workplace environments.

Without naming specifics, Newsom said some farmworkers were “living in shipping containers” and working for $9 an hour, well below the state minimum wage of $15.50.

“No healthcare, no support, no services, but [they’re] taking care of our health, providing a service to us each and every day,” he said at the news conference.

A spokesperson for Newsom called the workers’ conditions “simply deplorable” in a statement.

“Our country relies on their back-breaking work, yet Congress cannot even provide them the stability of raising their families and working in this country without fear of deportation, which contributes to their vulnerability in the workplace,” Daniel Villaseñor, deputy press secretary for Newsom’s office, said in the statement. “California is investigating the farms involved in the Half Moon Bay shooting to ensure workers are treated fairly and with the compassion they deserve.”

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