Gunman Kills 4, Is Slain by Police : Oxnard: Alan Winterbourne’s fatal rampage started in state unemployment office. An officer is among the dead. His motive is unknown.

An unemployed Ventura computer engineer went on a deadly rampage Thursday, killing three people at an unemployment office in Oxnard and fatally shooting an Oxnard police officer before he was gunned down after a wild chase to another jobs office in Ventura, investigators said.

The gunman, who also wounded four people, was identified by the Ventura County coroner’s office as Alan Winterbourne, 33, of Ventura, a man with a history of grudges against government.

The slain officer was James E. O’Brien, 35, an eight-year veteran of the Oxnard force. The two employees killed at the scene were Richard Villegas, 43, of Oxnard and Anne Velasco, 42, of Fillmore. Velasco was pronounced dead later at a hospital.

Richard Bateman, 65, of Camarillo, who worked for the nonprofit Assn. for Retarded Citizens of Ventura County, was also shot to death in the unemployment office. The four wounded were office employees Bonnie Smith, Darlene Provencio, Catherine Stinson and Irma Lopez, the wife of Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez.

Witnesses said the shaggy-bearded Winterbourne, wearing a sports coat and slacks, entered the Oxnard office building about 11:40 a.m., walked into an employee area and opened fire without warning. He appeared to be aiming at employees, and did not fire shots at members of the public in the waiting area.

“He did not scream anything to the people, he just kept shooting,” said Deborah Dean, who was waiting to apply for a benefits extension when the shooting started. “There was a pause and another volley and everyone hit the floor.”

The gunman then left the office and encountered Oxnard officers arriving in response to a 911 call. As the officers fired at him, Winterbourne ran to a nearby residential street, jumped into his parked car and led officers on a street chase through an agricultural area between Oxnard and Ventura.

At Olivas Park Drive and Victoria Avenue, near an area of lemon groves and farm fields, the gunman got out of his car and fired a rifle at officers behind him. O’Brien was struck and killed.

With more than a half-dozen police cars still in pursuit, Winterbourne pulled into the Ventura office of the Employment Development Department. As dozens of employees from nearby offices watched, he got out of his car carrying a rifle and was shot by a half-dozen police officers.

Oxnard Police Cmdr. Tom Cady said Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury’s investigators issued a preliminary finding that the officers were justified in shooting Winterbourne.

When he entered the Oxnard office minutes earlier, the gunman appeared to be aiming at the 35 to 40 employees who scrambled for cover, rather than at clients.

“When I saw him with a gun looking over the partition, I didn’t stay in my desk,” said Gary Wood, an 18-year employee at the Oxnard office who saw Winterbourne kick open a locked gate separating the public waiting area from the office.

“I just ran in the manager’s office and we barricaded ourselves by putting a desk and table against the door,” Wood said.

Employees said they heard bursts of gunfire, as employees were killed at close range. The first person fatally shot was working at a computer in a small conference room near the gate. Another worked near the public counter. One woman was shot as she hid beneath her desk, Wood said.

“Then it was silent for a minute. We could hear him reloading,” Wood said. “I think he just walked up one aisle and walked back down another aisle in our work area.”

Some ran out the building’s entrance at 1960 N. C St. while Winterbourne was still shooting.

Irma Lopez was hit with a half-dozen shotgun pellets in the leg and back as she fled the building. After falling several times, Lopez was picked up and driven to the hospital by Ray Gonzales, an insurance salesman. “He saved Irma’s life,” said Mayor Manuel Lopez at St. John’s Regional Medical Center. “She’s in a lot of pain, but she’s going to be OK.”

Meanwhile, in the lobby, Dean and more than a dozen other clients lay beneath chairs in the waiting area. She was shielding the head of another woman’s child.

“You could tell he was moving,” Dean said. “You could tell the gunshots were coming this way. There were people praying and babies crying; mostly it was quiet.”

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When the shooting stopped, the gunman jumped across a counter to the public area, tucked a handgun into his waistband, and calmly walked out a different door on the building’s north side. He came within 10 feet of where Dean lay on the floor.

Just after Winterbourne exited, employees began streaming out the building’s C Street entrance. “They were just trying to get out. There wasn’t much screaming,” said Fred Gore, who was parked across the street when he heard the shots.

As police arrived, Winterbourne ran through a narrow passageway to Bluebell Street, exchanging gunfire with police. On the residential street, he jumped into a brown Plymouth Duster, speeding away as police fired several more rounds.

Police pursued Winterbourne on Victoria Avenue until he was slowed in noontime traffic. As officers fired at him, Winterbourne stopped his car, got out and returned fire, killing O’Brien.

“It was like a war zone,” said Manuel Ramirez, an Oxnard city employee, was working nearby on a sewer line.

After jumping back into his car, Winterbourne drove across the center divider and turned down Olivas Park Drive. The chase finally ended when Winterbourne wheeled into the parking lot of the Ventura unemployment office and jumped from his car.

“He ripped into the parking lot real quick,” said Carrie Shlonsky, 25, a mortgage company employee who walked outside when she heard sirens. “Then the police jumped out of their cars. There were a bunch of shots, maybe 15 or 20. . . . It sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off.”

Investigators said Winterbourne emerged from the car with a rifle. Six Oxnard police officers fired, killing him instantly.

In all, Winterbourne was armed with two rifles and a handgun, as well as a shotgun that he left at the Oxnard office.

Police said they have no clue to what prompted the rampage. “We do not have any idea why he would go to the office when he did,” Cady said.

As the afternoon wore on, a large crowd of employees’ relatives waited anxiously for word of their loved ones. Some relatives rushed to the building after being called by frantic workers inside.

“She said come quick, and then she hung the phone up,” said Manny Provencio, whose wife, Darlene, was wounded when shotgun pellets struck her hip. She was listed in stable condition at Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo.

Officer O’Brien was the first Oxnard police office killed in the line of duty since 1981, Cady said. He was married with two children.

Gov. Pete Wilson issued a statement saying his office would take “every precaution necessary to guarantee the safety of workers and visitors in state facilities.”

Winterbourne, who had not landed a job for seven years, was part of the hard-core unemployed in a county that has had a stubbornly high jobless rate for the past two years.

He had been a job referral client of the Employment Development Department as recently as a few months ago, but investigators found no connection between Winterbourne’s experience with the agency and the killings.

EDD employees said they have worried about the potential hazards of their job.

“We’ve all talked about it. I guess it’s in the back of everybody’s mind,” said Patsy Stockton. “(We) can’t help what happens as far as the checks being late or their unemployment status. We try to help them; we’re just paper pushers.”

Judy Garza, who was recently hired as a stockroom clerk, echoed Stockton’s words. “We’re just doing our job and we get shot for it,” she said.

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Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Dwayne Bray, Tina Daunt, Pancho Doll, Gary Gorman, Scott Hadly, Daryl Kelley, Peggy Y. Lee, Joanna M. Miller and Stephanie Simon contributed to this report. Also contributing were Times correspondents Maia Davis, Pat McCartney, J.E. Mitchell, Matthew Mosk and Kay Saillant.