Law enforcement officers hold a tarp as they inspect the body of a victim of a shooting spree that left four people dead including the shooter in Tustin, California, yesterday.

AFP/Los Angeles

A gunman killed three people in California yesterday, including at least one execution-style, in a series of carjackings before taking his own life, police said.

At least two other people were injured as the gunman fired randomly on other vehicles while driving a stolen car on the freeway, before he shot and killed himself in the city of Orange, south of Los Angeles.

The first killing appeared to be a woman found dead in her home in Ladera Ranch, after neighbours reported hearing gunfire in the early hours. The suspect, a man in his 20s, then fled in an SUV.

“Multiple incidents” then occurred as the man drove to nearby Tustin, about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles, said Tustin police department spokesman Paul Garaven.

In one carjacking, the suspect got out of his vehicle, and confronted a motorist in a BMW.

“He orders him out of the vehicle, walks him to the side of the curb, and executes (the) victim,” said Santa Ana Police Corporal Anthony Bertagna, updating reporters on the early morning shooting spree.

Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said four people were confirmed dead including the gunman.

“With each carjacking there was a shooting involved,” he said, adding that there was no active pursuit of the suspect’s vehicle, until it was located in Orange, where the gunman took his own life.

“He stopped the vehicle and got out and shot himself,” he said.

The total number of injured was unclear, as further reports emerged of people shot at while driving on the freeway.

 

Shooter wanted to top Norway death toll

The man who shot dead 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school wanted to kill more people than the 77 slain by a Norwegian man in a 2011 rampage, CBS News reported on Monday, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

A Connecticut state police spokesman dismissed the report as inaccurate speculation.

Adam Lanza, 20, who killed himself as police closed in on him at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, saw himself in direct competition with Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting attack in Norway on July 22, 2011, CBS said. Breivik surrendered to police.

Citing two officials briefed on the Newtown investigation, CBS said Lanza targeted the elementary school because he saw it as the “easiest target” with the “largest cluster of people.”

The report did not say how the investigators learned of Lanza’s desire to compete with Breivik.