The gunman who killed his three daughters, a chaperone who was supervising his visit with the children and himself in a Northern California church this week was armed with an unregistered ghost gun.
David Mora, 39, was armed with a homemade semiautomatic rifle-style weapon. He had an illegal 30-round ammunition magazine and 17 bullets were fired, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said.Mora was under a restraining order that barred him from possessing a firearm and authorities do not know how or when he obtained it.
The violence erupted Monday during a weekly supervised visitation Mora had with his daughters, ages 13, 10 and 9. Investigators have revealed no motive. At the time, Mora was out on bail after being arrested five days earlier on charges of resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and driving under the influence.
The Merced County Sheriff’s Office told the AP that under California’s so-called sanctuary state law, it does not notify immigration officials about in-custody people who are being released, and ICE was never notified. The 2017 state law restricts local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal officials except when immigrants are accused of very serious crimes.
Grisel Ruiz, supervising attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said gun control and domestic violence appear to be the central issues in the killings, while immigration status had no bearing.