Killer Was Persistent, a Little Strange

Nazir Lalani encounters all kinds of bitter people at Ventura City Hall, where he takes complaints about street signs and other traffic matters.

No one was more irrational than 33-year-old Alan Winterbourne, Lalani said.

On Thursday, Winterbourne shot and killed an Oxnard police officer and three other people at an Oxnard unemployment office before being gunned down himself, authorities said. Four others were wounded.

Even before the shootings, Winterbourne scared Lalani.

“I had expressed my concern to the city manager that Mr. Winterbourne might come in and shoot me,” Lalani recalled.

In the aftermath of one of the worst rampages in Ventura County history, friends and others described the man responsible as intelligent and pleasant, but also angry and a little strange.

He stood out in a crowd, always wearing his hair long and his beard bushy.

“I remember him being different-looking, but he spoke articulately,” said former Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, whom Winterbourne challenged in the 1990 Republican primary.

Others said Winterbourne had a tendency to bother some people because he would attach himself to a cause and not give up on it, even when it became apparent that he had no chance of prevailing.

A case in point:

Winterbourne waged a three-year campaign to remove stop signs from an area near the Milton Avenue home he shared with his mother near the Buenaventura Plaza.

*

A two-inch-thick file attests to the volume of letters he wrote complaining about the signs, which he said forced people to break the law when they failed to stop. He suggested that the city install a yield sign, which would not require people to stop at all times.

“His issue was, ‘I ride a bicycle and I can’t roll through the intersection as I used to. I have to get off my bike now,’ ” said Lalani, Ventura transportation engineer. “I said to him, ‘Mr. Winterbourne, you’re the exact kind of person I’m trying to make sure does not get hit.’ ”

But Winterbourne persisted. “He just never understood,” Lalani said.

After Winterbourne’s rampage Thursday, friends and others who knew him tried to discern what ultimately drove him to violence.

Many described Winterbourne as a friendly, easygoing man who enjoyed hiking, skiing and pedaling around the neighborhood on his bicycle. He frequently pushed his sister’s baby through the neighborhood in a stroller, one neighbor said.

He had no known involvement with the criminal-justice system in Ventura County, according to court records. He attended Trinity Lutheran Church in Ventura, Pastor Ken Gesch said.

Winterbourne’s mother, Ila, is a former manager of the Ventura County Symphony Orchestra. His sister, Carol, is a flutist for the orchestra, a symphony official said. No information was available on his father.

Several people said Winterbourne was intelligent. In 1985, he earned a college degree in computer science from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. He was employed as a systems engineer at Northrop Corp. in Newbury Park for about six months after graduation.

James Taft, a spokesman for Northrop, said Winterbourne quit voluntarily. “He was not laid off or fired,” Taft said.

One family friend, however, said that whatever caused Winterbourne to leave Northrop did not set in well with him. “He was very bitter about it,” said the friend, who asked not to be identified.

But he tried to work within the system, and several people were stunned by Thursday’s shooting spree.

“He always had this peculiar appearance . . . but he was articulate and had a sense of humor,” the friend said. “God, never in a million years would I have expected something like this to happen.”

What happened during his initial years of unemployment was not clear Thursday. But in 1990, Winterbourne surfaced in a big way with a run for Congress.

He placed his name on the ballot to challenge the 16-year incumbent Lagomarsino, although Winterbourne did not run an active campaign. He said he just didn’t like the idea of Lagomarsino running unopposed.

In the little campaigning that he did do, Winterbourne pushed two issues: reducing the national budget deficit and eliminating the 55-m.p.h. speed limit. As he would later with the stop-sign crusade, Winterbourne said the speed limit caused normally law-abiding people to break the rules.

“People are becoming criminals when they shouldn’t be criminals,” he told a reporter. “. . . I think we should have laws with common sense.”

He garnered 11.4% of the vote.

*

Lagomarsino recalled his opponent’s insistence on an accessible and responsive government.

“I remember talking to him once during the campaign, and he told me that he was running because he couldn’t get an appointment with me,” Lagomarsino said.

Winterbourne apparently had not given up hope of returning to work.

Only recently, he had become a job-referral client with the state unemployment agency. Officials there were still checking Thursday whether he had ever complained about the services he received, said Austin Snarr, an investigator with the agency.

Winterbourne hinted at his dissatisfaction with unemployment in a letter he wrote to The Times after city officials credited the stop signs for a decline in auto accidents.

“Possible reasons for the decrease in accidents in Ventura is maybe because no one can afford the tickets from being out of work so long,” the letter said.

Hank Cruz, a neighbor who described himself as a good friend of Winterbourne, said they used to work on cars in Winterbourne’s garage. “I’d see him taking off on his bike and mowing his lawn.”

And shortly before Thursday’s shootings, Cruz saw Winterbourne flash a smile as he left home.

“He waved to me,” Cruz said.

In the car, police said later, were a shotgun, two rifles and a handgun.