SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Five people are dead, including three children, after a man opened fire inside a Sacramento-area Church Monday night before turning the gun on himself.
The gunman, who was the father of the children killed, then shot himself, and was dead, authorities said, in an apparent domestic violence incident.
The three children killed were all under 15 years old, said Sgt. Rodney Grassmann, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Scott Jones told reporters at the scene that the mother was not involved in the incident and was talking with authorities. Jones said the mother had a restraining order against the father, and that the father was at the church Monday night for a supervised visit with the children.
Authorities said a fourth person, an adult who was supervising the visit, was shot and killed, but Jones said it was unclear whether the victim was a church employee or a social worker.
“This was not a random shooting,” he said, adding that the shooter and victims “all knew each other.”
The shooting happened just after 5 p.m. at The Church in Sacramento on the 2000 block of Wyda Way. A church employee, who was working upstairs, heard gunshots and called 911.
“They said they heard a shot and then additional shots — (the employee) left the building,” Grassmann said.
Grassmann said the shooting was over in a matter of minutes before deputies arrived.
Police cordoned off the neighborhood around the Arden Arcade church, which was several hundred yards east of the Sacramento city limits and the Swanston Estates neighborhood, several blocks north of Arden Fair.
Grassmann said he expected investigators to be at the scene.
Sacramento City Councilman Eric Guerra referred to the incident as a “mass casualty shooting” at a church in a message urging people to be alert in the area.
Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in just after the shooting on Twitter, saying “Another senseless act of gun violence in America — this time in our backyard. In a church with kids inside. Absolutely devastating.”
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