The early morning commute was just getting under way on suburban Orange County‘s network of freeways when Melvin Lee Edwards pulled up to a stop sign near a busy off-ramp.
It was just after 5 a.m. and Edwards, 69, was on his way to work when, police say, a fleeing murder suspect forced him out of his BMW at gunpoint, marched him across the street and shot him three times from behind as horrified commuters watched.
The shooting was the second of three murders in a trail of carnage early Tuesday that spanned 25 miles — but lasted just an hour. The shooter, 20-year-old Ali Syed, killed a woman in the home he shared with his parents, killed two drivers during carjackings, injured two others and shot up cars on a busy freeway interchange before committing suicide as police closed in, authorities said.
Syed, an unemployed part-time community college student, had no known motive and acted alone, said Tustin police Chief Scott Jordan. The first victim, a woman in her twenties, has not been identified and was not related to Syed, he said.
The violence began at 4:45 a.m., when deputies responded to a call from Ladera Ranch, a sleepy inland town about 55 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They found the woman shot multiple times.
Syed’s parents were in the house at the time, fled the residence when shots were fired, and reported it, Jordan said.
From Ladera Ranch, the gunman headed north and pulled off Interstate 5 in Tustin, about 20 miles away, with a flat tire, police said.
A man who was waiting in a shopping center parking lot to carpool with his son saw Syed had a gun and tried to escape in his Cadillac, Jordan said. Syed ran after the car as it drove away and fired his shotgun through the back window, striking the driver in head but not killing him.
The driver “noticed that he was loading his shotgun, so he simply gets back in his car and tries to escape,” Jordan said. “He’s driving through the parking lot trying to get away and the suspect is actually chasing him on foot, taking shots at him.”
Syed then crossed the street to a Mobil gas station, where he approached the driver of a pick-up who …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Police have identified the suspect in this morning’s shooting spree in California as a 20-year-old Ali Syed, described as an unemployed, part-time student, reports AP . The spree reportedly began when Syed shot and killed a woman in her 20s inside her home, though police haven’t said yet whether there was…