Gunman who killed 3 at Bay Area quarry is slain
First came the deadly shooting rampage at a quarry near Cupertino. Then a 24-hour manhunt for the gunman that left area residents trapped inside their homes while SWAT teams and search dogs swarmed their community.
By Thursday morning, the terror had come to an end when Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Shareef Allman, 49, after encountering the armed suspect on a street in Sunnyvale.
Family and friends grieve for the dead and wounded. But questions remain over what prompted Allman — a single father who friends say preached nonviolence and was a role model for young African American men — to go on the rampage, killing three and wounding seven others.
Authorities said Allman, whom they described as a disgruntled worker, arrived for a 4:15 a.m. safety meeting Wednesday at the Lehigh Permanente Plant. He left, came back and opened fire on his co-workers with a rifle and handgun.
A short time later, Allman shot a woman in the leg in a Hewlett-Packard parking lot a mile away while trying to take her car.
The dead were identified as John Vallejos, 51, and Mark Munoz, 59, both of San Jose, and Manuel Pinon, 48, of Newman, south of Modesto.
Friends of Allman, a driver at the quarry for 15 years, said he had told them that co-workers were trying to undermine him because of his race. Company officials denied the allegation.
A union official, however, said that Allman had been upset that he was suspended for three weeks because of a driving accident and was challenging the action.
“He was not happy with the length of suspension,” said Bill Hoyt, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Union, Local 287, in San Jose, which represents drivers. “The business agent agreed, and there was a grievance filed.”
After Wednesday’s shootings, Allman fled. He managed to elude authorities until deputies on routine patrol encountered him Thursday morning.
Cynthia Mose, 47, of Sacramento said she had known Allman for 25 years and drove to the Sunnyvale neighborhood early Thursday hoping to get a chance to talk to him. “I was hoping I could get him to surrender,” she said.
Asked what would provoke him to such violence, Mose said: “I guess he figured he didn’t have no alternative. I guess he decided to take things into his own hands. This is the outcome.”
She said Allman told her that his “job was really racist … and they were trying to get rid of people.”
Community activist Walter Wilson, another friend, also said Allman felt that some workers at the plant “were doing systemic discriminatory practices.” But Wilson and others described Allman as a peacemaker.
Allman served as a mentor and role model for young African American men, said the Rev. Jethroe “Jeff” Moore II, the head of the Silicon Valley NAACP and a friend. Allman raised his 17-year-old daughter on his own, and she was the love of his life, Moore said.
Now, like the children of Allman’s victims, she is fatherless.
“That’s what’s mind-boggling,” Moore said. “For my own selfish reasons I wish he had been taken alive, so we could at least have had some conversation or explanation.”
La Ganga reported from Cupertino, Romney from Oakland and Quinones from Los Angeles.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
