A heavily armed man shot three people dead at an Oxnard unemployment office, then shot and killed a police officer before being gunned down by police outside another unemployment office in nearby Ventura.
Authorities said Alan Douglas Winterbourne of Ventura, a chronically jobless man who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1990, walked into the state Employment Development Department office in Oxnard at 11:40 a.m. Thursday and, without a word, started firing."He pulled out a big long rifle and began shooting at employees," said Liz Smith, a woman from nearby Thousand Oaks who was among those waiting in line to file a claim in the crowded unemployment office.
"There was no argument," Smith said. "He didn't say a word."
Police said the gunman's motive was unknown. State unemployment authorities refused to say whether Winterbourne had a dispute with the agency.
Winterbourne was armed with at least one rifle, a shotgun and a handgun. After killing three people and wounding four others in the unemployment office, he ran outside - and was confronted by Oxnard police officers called to the scene.
After a brief exchange of gunfire, he jumped into a light brown Plymouth Duster and sped away, with police in pursuit.
When he got stuck in traffic on Victoria Avenue heading toward Ventura, Winterbourne jumped out of his car and fired at pursuing officers, hitting Officer James E. O'Brien in the head, said Cmdr. Tom Cady of the Oxnard Police Department.
O'Brien was a 35-year-old father of two who had been with the department for nine years.
He then got back into his car and sped away again, heading toward the Ventura unemployment office on Market Street.
He was shot and killed by pursuing officers outside the state unemployment office there as he emerged from his car with a rifle in hand, Cady said.
Police retrieved two rifles and a shotgun from the car and were searching for the handgun, Cady said.
Three people died at the Oxnard unemployment office, all of them employees: Phillip Villegas, 43, of Oxnard, an unemployment office supervisor; worker Anna Velasco, 42, of Fillmore, Calif.; and Richard Bateman, 65, of Ventura, who worked with an agency associated with the unemployment office.
Four other people were wounded.