Fresno shooting suspect charged with murder, targeting 3 victims because of their race, prosecutors say

A man accused of killing three people during a daytime shooting rampage in Fresno last week has been charged with three counts of murder and of targeting the victims because of their race, county prosecutors said Wednesday.

Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, faces eight felonies, including three counts of attempted murder, shooting into a moving vehicle and being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the April 18 attack, the Fresno County district attorney’s office said. Prosecutors also alleged special circumstances in that Muhammad used a firearm and committed multiple murders.

If convicted on all charges, he faces a possible sentence of life without parole or the death penalty, officials said. Prosecutors said they will decide whether to pursue capital punishment at a later date.

Prosecutors say Muhammad targeted the victims because they were white. Muhammad is black, and authorities said that during his rampage, he deliberately avoided killing two women in a car once he realized they were Latina.

At the time of the killings, police had been looking for Muhammad in connection with a homicide that took place days earlier at a Motel 6.

In that incident, Muhammad shot 25-year-old security guard Carl Williams because “he felt Carl Williams had disrespected him,” Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

At a hearing Friday, a doctor was appointed to evaluate Muhammad’s mental competency.

Dyer said Muhammad, who spoke of an ongoing race war, told investigators he didn’t want to go down for killing the security guard — he wanted to “kill as many white males as possible.”

Five days after Williams was gunned down, police said, Muhammad walked up to a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. truck and fired shots into it, striking Zackary David Randalls, a 34-year-old Clovis resident.

After shooting Randalls, police said, Muhammad fired at but missed a 59-year-old man who had just walked out of a home. Muhammad then fired on a vehicle but stopped once he saw that the occupants were two Latinas, the chief said.

Muhammad continued walking and fatally shot Mark James Gassett, 37, of Fresno, Dyer said.

Next, Muhammad fired at David Martin Jackson as Jackson sat with two other men at a bus stop, the police chief said. As Jackson, a 58-year-old Fresno resident, ran away, Muhammad chased him and fired two more shots at him, Dyer said. Jackson collapsed and died in the parking lot of Catholic Charities, the police chief said.

A total of 17 shots were fired before Muhammad was taken into custody, Dyer said. The gun has not been found.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

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Staff writer Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.