On December 2, 1993, a mass shooting occurred at a Employment Development Department (EDD) office in Oxnard, California, United States. Driven by perceived grievances over his long-term unemployment, 33-year-old Alan Douglas Winterbourne, opened fire inside the building, killing three people and wounding four others. He then fled the scene and was pursued by police into neighboring Ventura, where he fatally shot Oxnard police Sergeant James O'Brien. Winterbourne was subsequently killed by police outside another EDD office in Ventura.
The incident was the first mass shooting in Ventura County history and remained its deadliest for 25 years, until the Thousand Oaks shooting in 2018.
Events
Prelude On the morning of December 2, 1993, five days before a rescheduled job interview, Winterbourne had a brief phone call with his mother. Shortly afterward, he packed his accumulated rejection letters, a job contact notebook, and his Northrop unemployment documents into a manila envelope. He loaded his firearms into his vehicle and departed from his mother's home in Ventura, California.
At 11:15 a.m., Winterbourne entered the lobby of the Star-Free Press in Ventura. Described as a husky man standing six feet tall with long brown hair and a scraggly beard, he was dressed in a dark trench coat, gray slacks, a white shirt, and a clip-on tie. He asked to speak with opinion page editor Timm Herdt and handed him the manila envelope containing documents related to his employment history, job search, and appeal of the denial of unemployment benefits. The envelope contained two job performance reviews from Winterbourne's brief employment as a computer systems engineer at Northrop Corporation in 1986, a letter of resignation, a Department of Defense document concerning penalties for violating a security oath, a letter to his congressman alleging illegal activities at Northrop and threats against his life, and a transcript of an appeal of his denial of unemployment benefits. It also contained hundreds of job advertisements, applications, and rejection letters from nearly 300 companies, along with a notebook documenting more than 2,000 job contacts between February 14, 1986, and December 2, 1993. Winterbourne told Herdt to look over the documents at his leisure and said that he would call later to discuss them. After thanking Herdt, he left the building. Herdt set the envelope aside without opening it and returned to work.
EDD shooting Winterbourne then drove approximately ten minutes south to neighboring Oxnard and parked his tan 1978 Dodge Aspen on a residential street near a state Employment Development Department (EDD) office, a facility he had visited as often as once a week. Approximately 50 clients, including mothers with young children, were waiting in the lobby. Although the office employed 35 people, about a dozen had called in sick that day and more were out of the office for various reasons, leaving a significantly reduced staff working behind the service counter. Police believed that Winterbourne walked past the office and entered the building from its far side through the parking lot. A witness outside observed him heading toward the entrance, noting that Winterbourne appeared to be "in a hurry." At 11:41 a.m., Winterbourne entered the EDD office through the east public entrance. Because he was such a frequent visitor to the office, EDD supervisor Bobbie Espinoza instantly recognized his long hair and beard as he walked inside. Without speaking, he approached the east end of the service counter and removed a 12-gauge shotgun from a long cardboard box. Winterbourne rested the weapon on the counter and fired his initial shot into a surveillance camera, prompting many occupants in the lobby to immediately drop to the floor. He then turned the weapon toward the staff and began shooting.
Winterbourne directed his fire toward the employees behind the counter and did not fire at the clients in the lobby. Espinoza, standing approximately ten feet away when she spotted the shotgun, immediately took cover beneath her desk and was not injured. Forty-three-year-old EDD clerk Phillip Villegas was shot in the back and killed as he turned to flee, making him the first victim to fall. As Villegas collapsed, occupants began shouting for others to get down, and clients and employees scrambled for cover. Employee Carol Wilson, who had just left the service counter, dove to the floor as coworkers near her fell from the gunfire. She crawled to a back room and dialed 911. As 41-year-old employee Catherine Ann Stinson turned to her right, another shot struck her computer terminal, causing it to explode. Immediately afterward, Winterbourne shot 65-year-old Richard Bateman, a retired businessman working as a job counselor for an organization that assisted people with disabilities, who fell to the floor in convulsions. Witnessing the monitor explode and Bateman collapse, 51-year-old employee Bonnie Smith was then shot in the hip; she subsequently crawled to a storage area to hide.
Winterbourne then kicked open the swinging door at the front counter and entered the employee work area. While some employees hid in a janitor's closet and a bathroom, others hid beneath their desks. He moved through the area, firing and reloading his shotgun. Hearing Bateman groaning in pain on the floor, Winterbourne shot him two more times in the upper body, killing him. Winterbourne then aimed at 59-year-old employee Cathie Jimenez, who was huddled under her desk behind a chair, and pulled the trigger. The weapon merely clicked because it had run out of ammunition. Jimenez began loudly praying Hail Marys. As Jimenez called 911, Winterbourne searched the pockets of his trench coat and reloaded the weapon. Distracted by the sound of 42-year-old Anna Velasco crying, he walked over to her adjacent desk. He shot Velasco in the hip, then fired a second round into her chest at close range.
As Stinson huddled beneath the counter, she observed Winterbourne turn abruptly and stalk toward 47-year-old EDD supervisor Irma Lopez, the wife of Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez. Lopez crawled under desks and moved telephone wires aside, attempting to remain silent as she navigated toward an employee entrance approximately 50 feet away. She hit the exit door with enough force to cut herself. She and Winterbourne made eye contact before he fired at her twice with his shotgun, striking her in the back and legs with buckshot. The blasts propelled her forward, leaving her collapsed with her legs propping open the doorway. Unaware of the extent of her injuries, Lopez saw people running away and began dragging herself toward the parking lot.
Ray Gonzales, a 36-year-old insurance salesman from Port Hueneme, was leaving his office at Prudential Insurance next door for lunch when he saw people running and screaming in his pickup truck's rearview mirror. Hearing the gunfire, Gonzales made a U-turn and slowly backed up to the curbside, stopping just five yards from the employee entrance, where he spotted Lopez collapsed and propping open the door. Looking past her into the building, he observed Winterbourne taking slow "baby steps," appearing calm and in a daze as he racked another shell into his shotgun. Fearing Winterbourne was about to shoot Lopez again, Gonzales shouted at her to get into his truck. After she attempted to stand and fell multiple times, she dragged herself within his reach. Gonzales grabbed her under the arms, yanked her into the cab, and pushed her onto the floorboard. He sped away as Winterbourne fired another blast toward the truck, transporting her to St. John's Regional Medical Center.
Winterbourne then climbed onto the front counter. Standing above Stinson's desk, he fumbled with his shotgun as it jammed, eventually abandoning it to retrieve a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver from a holster beneath his coat. Stinson, already suffering from a gunshot wound to her left shoulder received earlier in the rampage, crouched beneath the counter and watched as Winterbourne dropped his empty firearm to switch weapons. As she prayed, Winterbourne looked down and fired four times into her right leg, before also shooting 40-year-old worker Darlene Provencio in the hip, upper back, and right arm as she threw her body over an injured colleague. He subsequently fired four more shots into Stinson's left leg. Two workers attempted to position themselves behind Winterbourne to subdue him, but the rapid pace of the attack prevented them from taking action. Extra ammunition fell from his pockets as he moved through the office. Winterbourne ceased firing and vaulted over the four-foot-high service counter. He tucked the revolver into his waistband, straightened his jacket, and exited through the north door.
Pursuit and killing of James O'Brien Outside the EDD office, two women pointed out Winterbourne, who was standing at the other end of the building, to responding Oxnard police officer Joe Marino. Although Winterbourne initially appeared unarmed, he and Marino made eye contact before Winterbourne fled on foot. Drawing his .44 Magnum revolver, he took cover in a nearby walkway. As Marino and two other officers pursued him through the breezeway, Winterbourne took cover behind his car, propped his gun on the roof, and exchanged gunfire with the officers. The officers dropped to the ground and returned fire. One officer shot through the windshield of Winterbourne's vehicle, striking him twice, once in the left shoulder and once in the lung. Police later stated that internal bleeding from these wounds would eventually have been fatal. Despite his injuries, Winterbourne got into his Dodge Aspen and fled. An officer briefly chased the fleeing vehicle on foot, anticipating that Winterbourne might crash, but he successfully drove away, initiating a high-speed pursuit involving multiple patrol cars at speeds exceeding 100 mph (160 km/h).
The pursuit halted a few minutes later when Winterbourne encountered backed-up traffic at an intersection in Ventura. He braked suddenly, causing the Dodge to slide to a stop diagonally across the lanes. He then exited the vehicle, braced himself behind the driver's-side door with a scoped .300 Winchester Magnum Browning A-Bolt bolt-action rifle, and fired two shots. Oxnard police Sergeant James O'Brien, 35, was approximately 200 feet (61 m) away, taking cover behind the open door of his unmarked police vehicle. Winterbourne's first shot struck a police car spotlight before deflecting and hitting O'Brien in the head, killing him instantly. After O'Brien fell, Winterbourne fired another shot before getting back into his vehicle and driving away. Because civilian motorists were present, officers did not return fire. Winterbourne continued toward Ventura with police in pursuit.
Final confrontation