On April 18, 2017, a spree shooting took place in Fresno, California, United States. Three people were killed before the perpetrator, 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad, was arrested.
Muhammad was already wanted for killing a security guard at a Motel 6 on April 13. He stated that he committed the shootings because of his hatred for white people, particularly white men. He had attempted to kill another three white men during the shootings, but the gunshots did not strike their target.
On his social media posts, police stated that Muhammad made posts of him hating White people and expressing anti-government views. Muhammad shouted, "Allahu Akbar" (translated as "God is greater" in Arabic) when he was apprehended; however, police determined that the crime was not due to religious extremism and categorized it instead as a hate crime. Muhammad was not affiliated with any terrorist groups.
Kori Muhammad was convicted of all four murders and four attempted murders. Kori Muhammad was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Timeline of events Motel 6 shooting At approximately 11:00 p.m. on April 13, Carl Williams, an unarmed security guard working at a Motel 6 in central Fresno observed a man, Kori Ali Muhammad, visiting a woman who had checked into one of the rooms. Since motel policy mandated all visitors to provide identification at the office, Williams went to the room, with an armed coworker, to inform the pair of this policy. As Williams was escorting Muhammad and the woman to the motel office, an argument erupted between Williams and the woman. During the conversation, Muhammad walked a few steps away from Williams and then turned around and pulled out his handgun. Muhammad fired multiple shots at Williams from a close range, striking him multiple times and killing him. Muhammad's shooting of Williams was captured on the motel Wireless security camera. Muhammad also fired several shots toward the motel and at another security guard before fleeing. That guard was uninjured.
Manhunt The woman, who had fled back to the room, was taken into custody on a felony accessory charge after attempting to take evidence from the crime scene and refusing to identify the gunman to police. According to investigators, the gunman escaped police detection at the motel by fleeing south to a nearby 7-Eleven and hiding out on the store rooftop, where he watched officers interview witnesses and waited for them to leave. Once they left the next morning, he got off of the rooftop, went to a nearby elementary school, and hid by a dumpster. He then traveled around Fresno over the weekend, changing his appearance by cutting his hair.
On April 18, Fresno police identified one suspect in the shooting, 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad. He was a friend of the daughter of the woman at the hotel. On the same morning, while out to purchase items for use in "voodoo rituals," Muhammad went to a Starbucks coffee shop and used the shop's Wi-Fi to watch a broadcast by Fresno ABC affiliate KFSN-TV that identified him as a suspect in the security guard's murder.
Downtown shootings After being identified as a suspect in Williams' murder, Muhammad decided that he would not "go down for one murder" and that he "might as well take out as many white men" as he could. Hours after the identification, several shootings were reported in downtown Fresno. Muhammad first approached a Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) utility truck at approximately 10:45 a.m. and fired four shots into it, critically wounding an employee seated in the passenger seat. The passenger of the vehicle was identified to be Zachary Randalls. The driver of that truck was spared from being shot, since Muhammad deemed him Hispanic and thus non-white. The driver managed to drive away unharmed and took Randalls to the Fresno Police Department headquarters, where he alerted officers. Randalls was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he later died.
At Muhammad's murder trial, the driver of the PG&E utility truck testified that the truck was in park when Muhammad approached them sitting in it. From Muhammad's facial expression, the driver said Muhammad had a "cold, dark look" which the driver found to be unnerving. The driver nodded to Muhammad as a gesture from his window, to which Muhammad was unresponsive. Muhammad walked past the driver's left fender and then stopped, looking into the truck again. The driver told Randalls that he was suspicious of Muhammad's behavior at this moment. Muhammad then reached into his jacket, prompting the driver to immediately put the truck in reverse. Muhammad fired his gun a few times at the passenger's side, where Randalls was sitting, as the driver was backing up. As the driver backed up a sufficient distance from Muhammad, Muhammad fired off one last shot which hit the headrest of Randalls' seat. Randalls told the driver that he was shot. The driver called 9-1-1 emergency and drove to the police station because he did not know where the closest hospital was. The driver stated that Randalls lost consciousness on the way to the police station.
Seconds after shooting four rounds into the PG&E truck on N. Van Ness and mortally wounding Randalls, Muhammad proceeded south towards Mildreda Avenue, turning west. Muhammad fired two more shots at a 59-year-old man coming out of his house, but the shots missed. The second shot hit a residential dwelling on the other side of the street. Muhammad then reloaded his revolver in the alley between Van Ness and Fulton. Muhammad stated that he considered pursuing the 59-year-old man, believing he had gone back inside his house, but changed his mind. Muhammad then turned onto N. Fulton St heading south, where he fired once at a vehicle containing a woman, her adult daughter, and her four-year-old granddaughter, but stopped shooting after realizing they were Latino. No one in the vehicle suffered any gunshot wounds.
Muhammad then walked down the opposite direction, where he spotted a man, Mark Gassett, walking out of a Catholic Charities USA building. He shot Gassett once in the chest; he then killed him with two more shots after he had fallen to the ground. Muhammad then reloaded at a bus stop and fired at three white men. Two of them escaped unharmed, but Muhammad chased the third man, David Jackson. Muhammad followed Jackson, who was the heaviest and oldest of the three white men, into the parking lot of a Catholic Charities USA building. There, Muhammad fired six shots: two that killed Jackson, two that struck parked vehicles, one that struck a nearby building, and a sixth that was apparently never recovered. Witnesses said that Muhammad shouted obscenities as he fired.
Officers responding to shotspotter reports found Muhammad running down the street and managed to arrest him. During the arrest, Muhammad shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" Several bullets and speedloaders for a .357 Magnum revolver were recovered from his person, but no firearm was found. According to Chief Jerry Dyer, the gun was wrapped in clothing and picked up by a Hispanic male who had met up with Muhammad shortly after the shootings and then fled the scene. Dyer also said a total of seventeen shots were fired in 90 seconds during these shootings. Four minutes had passed between the first shots and Muhammad's arrest. Several streets and county government buildings were put on lockdown during the shootings, with people being ordered to shelter in place.
Victims All of the victims killed in the shootings were white males. The Motel 6 security guard was identified as 25-year-old Carl Williams. The victims of the April 18 shootings were identified the next day as PG&E employee Zackary David Randalls, 34, of Clovis; and Mark James Gassett, 37, and David Martin Jackson, 58, both of Fresno.
Aftermath The FBI and ATF were notified of the shootings. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security also responded to the Fresno Police Department headquarters. Chief Dyer said that the incident was "a random act of violence" and that the gunman acted alone, adding that it was "too soon" to determine whether the shootings were acts of terrorism. A federal law enforcement official said the shootings did not bear the hallmarks of a terrorist attack and appeared to be more of a "local, criminal matter".
Local authorities said they would investigate the shootings as a hate crime. Chief Dyer said that Kori Muhammad, who is black, told police he decided to become infamous for killing many white people after realizing he was wanted in the Motel 6 shooting. Muhammad led investigators through the murder scenes and described exactly how he committed the shooting rampage, laughing all the while.
Mayor Lee Brand offered his condolences to the victims' families and called April 18 "a sad day for us all". PG&E expressed its own condolences to all those involved, including the family of the slain employee.
Perpetrator Kori Ali Muhammad (born March 21, 1978) was the gunman in all of the shootings. Muhammad was homeless at the time, and had some association with gangs, but was not a member of one himself. He has three children.
Personal background Born as Cory Allen Taylor, and also previously known as Kori Taylor, Muhammad changed his name to his present one as a teenager. He also used the names Kori McDonald and Kori MacSon McWallace. His grandmother said that Muhammad had been drawn to Islam at a young age. Muhammad's aunt said that her nephew also attended a Baptist church when he was younger.
Muhammad was a resident of both Fresno and Sacramento, California. According to Muhammad's Facebook page, he studied multimedia at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. A spokesman for the Los Rios Community College District identified a student named Kori McWallace—with the same date of birth as Muhammad—who attended Cosumnes, American River College, and Sacramento City College at various times from 1996 to 2004. However, no details were immediately offered about his studies or if he graduated. Muhammad also attended classes at Fresno City College, but according to a classmate, he would often not show up for weeks at a time and accuse his instructors of being racist.
Previous criminal history Muhammad had a criminal history dated from 1997 to 2004, consisting of arrests on weapons, drugs, forgery, and false imprisonment charges, as well as making terrorist threats. Court documents also indicated that he "suffered auditory hallucinations and had at least two prior mental health hospitalizations." Two of his earliest arrests occurred when he was still a teenager; on both occasions, he allegedly brought a gun to school. In 2004, Muhammad was arrested in Washington state for allegedly firing a gun outside his apartment. He left the state and the case was dismissed after prosecutors declined to extradite him to a federal prison.
According to court records filed in February 2005, he was arrested and indicted in federal court on charges of "possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm for drug trafficking and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon". In September, Muhammad sought an insanity defense and underwent a psychiatric evaluation after his lawyer claimed his client was "suffering from hallucinations, paranoia and psychosis." A judge ruled that he was incompetent to stand trial and had him committed to a facility for up to four months. He was deemed competent in August 2006, after which he pleaded guilty to two of seven counts in the indictment. Muhammad was sentenced to over nine years in prison, though the sentence was downgraded to over seven years in 2008. He was released from prison early in September 2016.
Muhammad claimed to have shot a person at the age of twelve, but the claim was not confirmed by police.
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