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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2017
California gunman who killed 4, wounded 10 was out on bail
By DON THOMPSON
and PAUL ELIAS
Associated Press
RANCHO
TEHAMA
RESERVE, Calif. — The gun-
man behind a rampage in
Northern California was out
on bail charged with stabbing
a neighbor, others had com-
plained about him firing hun-
dreds of rounds from his house,
and he had been the subject of
a domestic violence call the day
before the attack.
Yet Kevin Neal was free and
able to use a semi-automatic
rifle and two handguns Tues-
day to shoot 14 people, killing
four, in seven different locations
across his rural community,
including an elementary school,
before he died in a shootout
with police.
It’s not yet clear what the
terms of Neal’s bail were, and
whether he would have been
allowed to possess and fire the
weapons on his property at the
end of a dirt road in Rancho
Tehama Reserve. Nor did sher-
iff’s officials give details on the
domestic violence call.
But his many contacts with
authorities raised questions of
why he was out of custody and
able to go on the 45-minute ram-
page that began with the killing
of two neighbors in an apparent
act of revenge before he went
looking for random victims.
Cristal Caravez and her
father live across a ravine from
the roadway where the gunman
and his first victims lived.
She said they and others
heard constant gunfire from the
area of the gunman’s house, but
couldn’t say for sure it was him
firing.
Two women embrace outside Rancho Tehama Elementary
School, where a gunman opened fire.
AP Photos/Rich Pedroncelli
A California Highway patrol officer photographs a vehicle involved in a deadly shooting
rampage at the Rancho Tehama Reserve, near Corning, Calif.
“You could hear the yell-
ing. He’d go off the hinges,” she
said. The shooting, “it would be
during the day, during the night,
I mean, it didn’t matter.”
She and her father, who
is president of the homeown-
ers association, said neighbors
would complain to the sheriff’s
department, which referred the
complaints back to the home-
owners association.
“The sheriff wouldn’t do
anything about it,” said Juan
Caravez.
The gunman’s sister, Sher-
idan Orr, said her brother had
struggled with mental illness
throughout his life and at times
had a violent temper.
She said Neal had “no busi-
ness” owning firearms.
Tehama County Assis-
tant Sheriff Phil Johnston said
the shooter was facing charges
of assaulting one of the feud-
ing neighbors in January and
that she had a restraining order
against him.
Johnston did not com-
ment on the shooter’s access to
firearms.
Johnston declined to iden-
tify the shooter until his rela-
tives were notified, but he con-
firmed the gunman was charged
with assault in January and
had a restraining order placed
against him. The district attor-
ney, Gregg Cohen, told the Sac-
ramento Bee he is prosecuting a
man named Kevin Neal in that
case.
Neal’s mother told The
Associated Press her son, who
was a marijuana grower, was
in a long-running dispute with
neighbors he believed were
Property: Out of 37 spaces,
34 chose to join the cooperative
Continued from Page 1A
“The Warrenton group
was the quickest we’ve ever
done,” Massa said. “The owner
wanted the money immedi-
ately, Nov. 1, so we did the best
that we could.”
As a community develop-
ment financial institution, the
nonprofit can access funds to
finance projects with under-
served populations. Since
2008, the group has helped buy
13 parks, including four this
year.
Between 2000 and 2007,
about 70 parks closed in Ore-
gon, Massa said.
“We’d hear about it after a
sale would happen,” she said.
“Some of the residents weren’t
even being notified.”
In 2007, residents from the
Thunderbird Mobile Club in
Wilsonville, many of them
older and on fixed incomes,
were evicted at the height of the
housing boom to make way for
new development. The closure
led to tenant protection laws.
The Opportunity to Purchase
Act passed by the state Legisla-
ture in 2014 provided residents
of the Warrenton Estates the
right to organize the purchase
of their park.
Self-management
Out of the 37 spaces in the
park, 34 chose to join the coop-
erative. Each now has a share,
along with upkeep responsibil-
ities. Fallert is the president of
an interim, five-member board
of directors. Next month, resi-
dents will vote on a permanent
board.
The park recently hired a
separate property manager to
handle collection of rent, part
of the third-party oversight
required by lenders. Commu-
nity And Shelter Assistance
Corp. will stick around for the
life of the loan to make sure
the members of Elk Meadows
are following the statutes of a
cooperative.
The park will no longer
have an on-site manager to han-
dle maintenance. Board mem-
ber Doug Lyle, who moved to
the park eight years ago after
relocating to the region to help
take care of his mother, has
been surveying the park’s utili-
ties and compiling a list of con-
tacts for residents with electri-
cal, plumbing and other issues.
“We’re trying to keep (costs)
down,” Lyle said. “We’ll be
mowing our own lawns here
and all that. Everybody donates
their time and effort.”
Residents of the park have
so far avoided another rent
increase in the takeover, aside
from a maintenance fee for
nonmembers. Out of all the
parks the nonprofit has helped
purchase, Massa said, only
one has faced a rent increase,
because of a cable contract.
“Basically what this is
about is guaranteeing afford-
able housing for people,” Fall-
ert said. “If the water goes up
50 percent, then we’ll have to
deal with that, things like that.
But we won’t have the kind of
economic pressures that a pri-
vate single owner would have.”
Bell: ‘I hope it will be for all ages’
Continued from Page 1A
railings Bell estimates at about
one-fourteenth of a mile. The
track winds through distinct
sections filled with bright
painted blue skies and stylis-
tic elements of Arizona, New
Mexico, Route 66 and tropical
islands.
Bell is having bathrooms
built and plans to add heating,
seating and areas for her to teach
about diabetes prevention. Near
the front will be a case selling
some milk products, a nod to
the building’s past.
Bell started as a nurse in
the 1960s and said that by 10
to 15 years into her career, she
was noticing how often diabe-
tes was showing up in patient’s
charts. She eventually special-
ized in diabetes education, and
was named the National Diabe-
tes Educator of the Year in 1995
by the American Association of
Diabetes Educators.
“Everything in the body is
affected by diabetes,” she said.
“And what leads to diabetes?
Weight problems.”
Living in Astoria, Bell
found the roads too danger-
ous when wet and has taken to
doing laps around the first floor
of her house. She plans to regu-
larly walk in the park regardless
of who else shows up, but has
been recruiting through flyers,
physician referrals and word of
mouth.
She recommends walking
after meals and said the park
will open in spurts between 10
a.m. and 9 p.m., with member-
ships and daylong access for $5.
“I hope it will be for all ages
and all conditions,” Bell said.
“I’ve stayed in good condition
because of walking, and I know
that. I’m now in my eighth
decade, and I’m feeling pretty
fine.”
Gas scare: Traffic backed up for miles
Continued from Page 1A
for a lot of people.”
As the odor of gas hung in the
air for blocks, a miles-long row
of stalled cars headed east waited
before the road was reopened.
Drivers approaching the city
from the east were also stuck.
Matthew White exited the
Astoria Bridge at about 5 p.m.
as he was driving home to
Knappa from his job in Long
Beach, Washington. By 6:30
p.m., he was stalled less than a
mile east of Safeway. To pass
the time, he munched on torti-
lla chips and salsa he had pur-
chased at the grocery store.
“I knew there was, like, a
wreck or something, so I fig-
ured, ‘Why not just grab some-
thing at Safeway?’”
Justin Schuyler, a manager
at Geno’s Pizza and Burgers at
37th Street and Lief Erikson,
stood outside the restaurant
just after 6 p.m. He was await-
ing the return of a driver who
had delivered food to Emerald
Heights just after 4:30 p.m.
The restaurant was forced to
stop delivering until the traffic
cleared.
“Even in the snow we’ll
have an all-wheel drive vehi-
cle and limp along,” Schuyler
said. “But very seldom do we
not deliver.”
The scare also affected
Tuesday’s Warrenton City
Commission meeting. Com-
missioner Rick Newton, stuck
in traffic, was unable to attend
due to the road congestion.
cooking methamphetamine.
The mother, who spoke on
condition she be named only
as Anne because she fears for
her safety, lives in Raleigh,
North Carolina, where she
raised Neal. She said she posted
his $160,000 bail and spent
$10,000 on a lawyer after he
was arrested in January for stab-
bing a neighbor. Neal’s mother
said the neighbor was slightly
cut after Neal grabbed a steak
knife out of the hand of the
neighbor who was threatening
him with it.
She wept as she told The
Associated Press she spoke to
Neal on the phone on Monday.
“Mom it’s all over now,” she
said he told her. “I have done
everything I could do and I am
fighting against everyone who
lives in this area.”
She said Neal apologized to
her during their brief conver-
sation, she thought for all the
money she had spent on him,
saying he was “on a cliff” and
the people around him were try-
ing to “execute” him.
“I think the motive of get-
ting even with his neighbors
and when it went that far — he
just went on a rampage,” John-
ston said.
Police said surveillance
video shows the shooter unsuc-
cessfully trying to enter a
nearby elementary school after
quick-thinking staff members
locked the outside doors and
barricaded themselves inside
when they heard gunshots.
Johnston said the gunman
spent about six minutes shoot-
ing into Rancho Tehama Ele-
mentary School before driving
off to continue shooting else-
where. Johnston said one stu-
dent was shot but is expected to
survive.
He said the 45-minute ram-
page ended when a patrol car
rammed the stolen vehicle the
shooter was driving and killed
him in a shootout.
Johnston said officials
received multiple 911 calls
about gunfire at an intersec-
tion of two dirt roads. Minutes
later, more calls reporting shots
flooded in from different loca-
tions, including the school.
Witnesses reported hearing
gunshots and children scream-
ing at the school, which has one
class of students from kinder-
garten through fifth grade.
The shootings occurred in
the rural community of Ran-
cho Tehama Reserve, a home-
owners association in a sparsely
populated area of rolling oak
woodlands dotted with grazing
cattle about 130 miles north of
Sacramento.
Many there live in poverty,
but others are better off.
“It’s not a bad community
at all,” said Harry Garcia, who
was minding his parents’ conve-
nience store La Fortuna Market.
“Some people keep their prop-
erties nice- some don’t. They
rough it out here. Some go with
minimum stuff. Some don’t
even have power out here.”
Doug Lyle and
Michael Fallert
are members
of the Elk
Meadows
Homeowners
Cooperative
that recently
purchased
Warrenton
Mobile Home
Estates.
Colin Murphey
The Daily Astorian