Police home in on killer after woman lets him borrow her phone, then calls 911
Police homed in on the gunman who shot three people at a convenience store in Yakima, Wash., after he borrowed a stranger’s cellphone to call his mother and confess what he had done, authorities said Tuesday.
The man shot and killed himself behind some warehouses as officers approached, Yakima Police Chief Matt Murray said. No officers used force, and none was injured, Murray added.
Police had surrounded Jarid Haddock’s family home after Tuesday’s predawn killings, but he wasn’t there, Murray told reporters. Instead, the 21-year-old had gone to the area of a Target store in the city, where he borrowed a woman’s phone and called his mother.
The woman overheard the conversation, which included incriminating statements such as “I killed those people,” as well as the man’s threats to kill himself, according to Murray. The woman then managed to get her phone back, separated herself from Haddock and called 911 to report his whereabouts, Murray said.
“I listened to that call — it’s pretty harrowing,” Murray said. “I have to really thank her again because she was very courageous in getting us there.”
Murray said investigators still had no idea what prompted the shootings at the convenience store. Haddock entered the Circle K store a little before 3:30 a.m. Tuesday and shot and killed two people who were there getting food, then stepped outside and shot someone else in a car.
Three mass shootings have been carried out in one week in California, in Goshen, Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay.
“There was no apparent conflict between the parties,” Murray said, citing witness statements as well as surveillance footage. “The male just walked in and started shooting.”
He then walked across the street to another gas station and began shooting into his own car to get inside because he had locked himself out, Murray said.
Police did not immediately release any information about the victims.
The attack is yet another outbreak of violence in the early weeks of 2023 as the U.S. suffers a wave of mass killings that have claimed dozens of lives.
Half Moon Bay shootings that left seven dead appear to be a case of workplace violence, law enforcement officials say.
After the killings, police released a surveillance image of the man and warned the community to be on the lookout. Law enforcement converged on his parents’ home, across the road from a storage facility on the outskirts of the city of nearly 100,000 residents, about 140 miles southeast of Seattle. Court records listed the home as a previously known address for Haddock.
Haddock appeared to have little criminal history. He was arrested in March 2020 after police saw him in a car that had been stolen from a woman who had left it running; he ran from officers who pulled him over, according to charging documents filed in Yakima County Superior Court, and he reported being homeless.
He successfully completed a diversion program, despite twice violating its terms by using methamphetamine or heroin, and the charges were dismissed in December 2021.
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