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Children were still hurrying in when the gunman’s white pickup truck came tearing down the street and crashed into the school’s locked gate at 7:56 a.m. A man later identified as Kevin J. Neal jumped out, wielding a semiautomatic rifle and wearing a vest packing ammunition, authorities said.
Police said that in the hours leading up to that moment, Neal had killed his wife and hidden her body beneath the floorboards of their home. He later began a bloody rampage across this community about 135 miles north of Sacramento, ultimately killing five people and injuring several others.
Police say Neal drove around the small community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, firing for at least 25 minutes at vehicles, homes and people in his path, targeting those he had quarreled with and complete strangers alike.
During his rampage, Neal intentionally crashed into a car and then fired at passengers as they got out, killing one, Johnston said. At another point, he shot a woman driving her children to school, seriously injuring her and wounding one of the young children in her back seat. School officials believe those were the shots heard at the nearby elementary school, triggering the lockdown.
“I really don’t know what his motive was,” said Phil Johnston, an assistant sheriff in Tehama County. “I think he was just on a rampage. I think he had a desire to kill as many people as he could.”
Red flags
Neal’s family had long worried about his mental state, and he had a number of run-ins with law enforcement in North Carolina before moving to California a decade ago.
Relatives had sought to get him treatment for what they believed was a mental illness, according to his sister, Sheridan Orr. She described the tragedy of the past two days as her worst fear come to life.
“If you could’ve seen him in those rages,” Orr, 46, said in a telephone interview. “Anything was possible.”
Neal’s behavior escalated from a bad temper as a teenager to something more uncontrollable as he got older, Orr said. When he would call family members in a rage, they would tell him that he needed to go to a mental health facility and that he needed medication. He would always refuse and never received an official diagnosis, Orr said.
“He never should have had guns, and he should’ve been able to get mental health care,” she said.
Police said that in the hours leading up to that moment, Neal had killed his wife and hidden her body beneath the floorboards of their home. He later began a bloody rampage across this community about 135 miles north of Sacramento, ultimately killing five people and injuring several others.
Police say Neal drove around the small community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, firing for at least 25 minutes at vehicles, homes and people in his path, targeting those he had quarreled with and complete strangers alike.
During his rampage, Neal intentionally crashed into a car and then fired at passengers as they got out, killing one, Johnston said. At another point, he shot a woman driving her children to school, seriously injuring her and wounding one of the young children in her back seat. School officials believe those were the shots heard at the nearby elementary school, triggering the lockdown.
“I really don’t know what his motive was,” said Phil Johnston, an assistant sheriff in Tehama County. “I think he was just on a rampage. I think he had a desire to kill as many people as he could.”
Red flags
Neal’s family had long worried about his mental state, and he had a number of run-ins with law enforcement in North Carolina before moving to California a decade ago.
Relatives had sought to get him treatment for what they believed was a mental illness, according to his sister, Sheridan Orr. She described the tragedy of the past two days as her worst fear come to life.
“If you could’ve seen him in those rages,” Orr, 46, said in a telephone interview. “Anything was possible.”
Neal’s behavior escalated from a bad temper as a teenager to something more uncontrollable as he got older, Orr said. When he would call family members in a rage, they would tell him that he needed to go to a mental health facility and that he needed medication. He would always refuse and never received an official diagnosis, Orr said.
“He never should have had guns, and he should’ve been able to get mental health care,” she said.
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