CHULA VISTA, Calif. _ A couple loading groceries into a car at a Costco in Chula Vista on Monday afternoon was shot several times by a gunman who then turned the weapon on himself in a deadly domestic violence ambush, police said.
The shooter died at a hospital, and the injured couple _ a man and a woman _ were in surgery after the shooting, Lt Dan Peak said. The woman's infant, who had been in a nearby stroller during the attack, was not injured.
The gunman had a prior dating relationship with the woman he shot, Peak said, and the other victim was the woman's current boyfriend.
Peak said that just before 1 p.m., the Police Department got multiple calls that several people had been shot in the Costco parking lot on Broadway near Naples Street.
Officers arrived and found three people down near a cluster of cars. All three were taken to a hospital. The shooter, whose name has not been released, died shortly before 2 p.m. The couple, also not publicly identified, were in surgery with "serious injuries" Monday afternoon. The baby was with family members.
Police were not able to immediately say what may have sparked Monday's shooting. Peak did confirm witness accounts that the gunman approached the victims from behind, but couldn't say whether the assailant had been lying in wait.
At least two witnesses said the gunman had placed a Gatorade bottle over the muzzle of the handgun in an apparent attempt to quiet the sound.
The brazen midday shooting left bystanders in shock.
"A guy was shooting. A guy was holding a gun and shooting a woman," witness Min Chen said.
Chen said she and her husband had just arrived at the warehouse store parking lot when her husband ushered her to the front end of their car as the gunman fired. She heard perhaps 10 shots.
After the shooter turned the gun on himself, Chen said her husband rushed to him and grabbed the gun. "I was so scared," she said.
Chula Vista resident Angela Shelton said she was a passenger in a pickup truck that was backing out of a parking spot when she saw a woman clutching her chest. Shelton said she believed the woman was having a heart attack, and watched as a man went to help her.
Suddenly that man was shot, she said. She then looked on as a gunman, who Shelton said was dressed in a blue shirt, black vest and black pants, approached the couple and fired repeatedly.
Shelton had initially got out of the truck when she believed the woman was having a heart attack, but when the shots were fired she quickly got back in. The pickup truck had several bullet holes.
"I could have been shot too," she said. "It's very scary."
Ricardo Esquivias, a resident of Chula Vista's Eastlake neighborhood, said he was walking in the parking lot toward the food court when he heard yelling.
"It was escalating, getting louder and louder," he said. Then he heard four or five gunshots.
"I saw everybody running after that," he said.
The shooting comes just days after a fatal shooting at a Costco in Corona, in Riverside County, involving an off-duty Los Angeles police officer.
In that incident, an officer shopping at Costco with his family Friday night fatally shot a 32-year-old man and injured two of the man's family members. Corona police said the officer was attacked while holding his young child.
