The gunman didn't kill Gage, but instead left him an orphan. He was arrested and jailed in Tehama County, but Neal made a $160,000 bail and was freed, allowing him to return . They tried to get him to remove his pants, but he wasnt wearing shorts and refused to remove his jeans. Sanders said that the first thought that went through his mind was that if the cops had done their job in dealing with Neal following several violent episodes in the past, he wouldnt be there with guns trying to kill children. This Jan. 31, 2017 photo provided by the Tehama County Sheriff's Office shows Kevin Janson Neal, who authorities have identified as the gunman behind a rampage in Northern California. "He had complaints against him and they never did anything about it except knock on his door," he says. Steve DuBois lives in Redding. [5][11][32] The other victims were 56-year-old Joseph McHugh III and 55-year-old Michelle McFadyen;[11] police believe they were randomly targeted. He then stole their truck, and began driving toward a nearby elementary school -- shooting randomly at people along the way. Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said that the body of Kevin Janson Neal's wife was found under the floor in their home and her murder is "what started this whole event." Uncle Chuck Bruehl pets his dog, Sammy, as friend Johnny Wythe looks on. Coy Ferreira and Sanders both said they saw Michelle McFadyens body off to the side of the road. As I drove throughout Rancho Tehama, I stopped and talked with random people like David, the step-brother to Danny Elliott; step-son of Diana Steele, both of whom were killed. Some believe that it was during that time period that Neal shot the McFadyens and stole his last vehicle from Jonah Bongcayo after chasing him with gunfire. A bullet hole is seen in an exterior wall at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School on Nov. 15, 2017. Afterwards, Neal apparently discarded the rifle outside the school. Less than four months after the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in 2016, a Florida nonprofit announced that it alone had raised more than $9 million for victims, including $100,000 from GoFundMe itself. In 2017, this census-designated place with fewer than 2,000 residents made national headlines in the same way as towns like Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla., and Uvalde, Texas. He was riding in a car with his son when Kevin Janson Neal opened fire. Ferreira said he grabbed the boy and ran into the storage room. He ran toward the gunfire, he said, drawing Neals attention just as the shooter was about to step through a broken window into a classroom filled with cowering children. Sandra Wells's 5-year-old daughter is happily back at school. / CBS News. Police believe the gunman, Kevin Neal, was likely targeting the neighbor's son, a kindergartner at the school and anyone else who got in his way. But he said his son doesnt feel safe living in Rancho Tehama Reserve, and neither of them has the money to leave town. One of the most illuminating conversations was with Sanders, someone who provided vital details and left me with an understanding that goes straight to the heart of the story: a possible motive. It's evident in a response that seems to linger somewhere between regret and resignation. The 35-year-old tree trimmer is now unemployed and, for now, unable to work because of his wounds. After Neal sped off in the truck, Sanders raced from the school and across the airport runway to his moms place. Lawsuits claim it wrecked their teeth. "But it's real. [36], On January 31, 2017, Neal was arrested and charged with two felonies, and five misdemeanors, after stabbing neighbor Hailey Poland, assaulting her mother-in-law, and snatching a mobile phone away from them. James Woods Sr., 47, at a park in Rancho Tehama Reserve. I met one man who lives in a hill-top home surrounded by beautiful vistas. RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. . I was ready," he says of that fall day. And he never saw the banner draped across the schools front columns that declares Rancho Strong in big block letters. It wasnt until Neal got back to his truck that one bullet grazed Sanders right forearm. I arrived at Rancho Tehama Sunday morning, and I left that evening. Cell phone photo of officers arresting Jessie Sanders, and having him strip down. Methinks this explains wee Patrick's attempt to change the oath for county employees. To many in town, hes a hero, though he says he dislikes the term. Like many here, Wilson fully understands that the department is tasked with covering an large, rural county with limited resources. She previously covered the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, focusing on accountability stories and writing about failures by officials to comply with transparency laws. First published on November 15, 2017 / 7:10 AM. Neal then crashed his vehicle into a car, which killed and injured two people. The injured victims were transported to several area clinics and hospitals. For most of them, it provided counseling, because thats what they needed. Plywood covers one of the windows at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School, Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, that was shot out during gunman Kevin Janson Neal's shooting rampage at Rancho Tehama Reserve . Cardenas says pledges of help to cover some medical costs transportation, medicine, mental health care have yet to materialize from the sheriff's office and the California victim's compensation board. Rancho Tehama is a remote, sparsely populated, rural unincorporated community in Tehama County, California, that had a population of 1,485 in 2010. As Sanders tried to reach Neal, Neal ran to the stolen truck, firing the whole time at Sanders. We were helping with that for a good two years afterward.. . "He didn't come to the door so they moved on. The community will try to move forward. RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. (AP) A Northern California man killed two neighbors with whom he had been feuding before he went on a shooting . Sanders said he and Neal made eye contact, and realized they knew each other. In part because of the limited media attention, people who were shot or lost loved ones that day say there has not been enough support available to help rebuild their lives. He gets good grades, she said, but for four years, he kept to himself, he made no friends, he didnt want to go out anywhere. Its been reported by various media that at some point during Neals shooting rampage, he rammed the stolen truck into a car on the road. The woman, who had a concealed carry permit, pulled out her own handgun but was unable to fire it before Neal drove away, Johnston said. Wythe lives in a small camper trailer next to Bruehls place. Neal was on the APPS list and known to be . And we still have that sense of 'we can't believe this really happened. Officials say Kevin Hanson Neal, 43, began firing at 7.52am on Tuesday. Jeff Eldred, a victim witness coordinator with the Tehama County district attorneys office, said that the county has helped about 150 people who were affected by the violence apply for financial assistance from the California Victim Compensation Board. Ferreira said that as he started to move away from the window, shots rang out, bursting through the glass and passing through the wall beneath the very windows hed looked through seconds earlier. The police confirm they got, on average, three complaint calls a month for nearly a year about Neal's behavior and gunfire. Rancho Tehama Reserve, where five people were killed and 14 others wounded in a shooting in November 2017. That just didn't happen for us in this case," he says. But Wells says her kindergartner is not really the same since she had to run and crouch in fear as the crackle of gunfire echoed. He began freelancing for the Orange County Register and relocated to south Florida in 2001, when he was awarded a fellowship through the Freedom Forum. Another young man, Dale Dykes, showed where Neal was shot and killed by officers, just a short distance down the road from where Sanders lives. He turned in one registered handgun to a vendor. I did get some clarification on the tragedy, but not on all the victims. The shooting in Rancho Tehama simply couldnt compete. He hid her body beneath the floor of their home. "[9], The shootings renewed attention on the legality and control of ghost guns, such as the semi-automatic rifle used in this incident. He heard his daughters teacher, Miss Nelson, yelling loudly for all the kids to get inside NOW! By then it was about 7:58 to 7:59 a.m. The New York Post reports the following day, he donned a ballistic vest, grabbed a semiautomatic rifle and two handguns and went on a 45-minute rampage across Rancho Tehama Reserve. It is believed the shooting spree began after a domestic row with the gunman's neighbours in Rancho Tehama, a rural community about 120 miles (195km . [12], At the Rancho Tehama Elementary School, Sarah Lobdell, the school's secretary, heard the gunfire near the school and quickly ordered the school to go on lockdown. There is no doubt in my mind, saved countless lives," said Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston. Police later shot and killed him. It is being reported that Kevin Janson Neal, the suspect in the case of the horrific Rancho Tehama School shooting is the same man who was arrested earlier this year for an assault against an elderly person that resulted in likely "great bodily injury.". RANCHO TEHAMA -- "The guy was a bad guy. They were his first victims. 2023 anewscafe.com. I spoke with Sanders sister Tina, and a man named Jose, uncle of the 6-year-old boy shot while he was at school Tuesday, huddled on the floor, too afraid to move from the danger of his classroom to the safety of a teachers storage room. Sanders was released. Another, to help with hospital bills for a 34-year-old Rancho Tehama father who was shot in the leg, brought in less than $5,000. Phommathep said he is certain Kevin Neal drove to Rancho Tehama Elementary School to kill Gage. The shooter was killed by law enforcement. The board did pay out more than $14,000 in total to families of the dead to help pay for funeral expenses. It's clear Johnston, too, was altered that day. Kevin Janson Neal: 43, of Corning was arrested Tuesday in the 6900 block of . Definitely the biggest thing, he said, is wondering how theyre going to look at their dad when theyre older., Now 12 years old, Gage moved with Feitelberg to her and her husbands home in Sacramento immediately after the shooting. He said that three students remained hiding beneath desks, too terrified to move. At one point, Elliott asked Sanders to move out, because he believed Sanders presence inflamed the feud, and the situation needed to calm down. Sissy Feitelberg with grandson Gage Elliott, who was orphaned at the age of 7 in the November 2017 shooting. Nearby the community's lone eatery, a caf and deli that was open during the shooting, looks like it's now out of business. A patchwork of country homesteads and double-wides, Rancho Tehama Reserves spare core features little more than a baby-blue post office with matching recreation center and homeowners association office, a gas station, a shuttered pizzeria and a cracked asphalt airstrip. One of children was the 6-year-old boy who would eventually be injured by gunfire. Neal shot and killed four other people and wounded 10 at different locations around the rural community of Rancho Tehama Reserve. It's not clear why the wounded have received so little thus far. And by the time police got to him, Cardenas says, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it. On the morning of Nov. 14, 2017, he helped prevent a potential bloodbath at the elementary school by drawing fire from the gunman in an act he brushes off as his parental duty. Ferreira said that about 7:57, about two minutes after the father and daughter had left the office, they heard shooting. [18][8] A woman was also shot when she attempted to distract Neal from the school. News media reported others who were shot by Neal as he drove to the school, such as Tiffany Nai Phommathep, shot four times in the shoulder while driving in her truck with her children passengers, some of whom were also injured by Neals bullets. Rancho Tehamas small private airport runway is between the school and where Sanders moved in with his mother after Elliott asked him to leave for the sake of their safety. Barely a week earlier, a shooter killed 25 people and an unborn child and injured 22 others at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. [10][21], As Neal was chasing an innocent victim and shooting at them from his car, he was being pursued by law enforcement. Sanders said that encounter started a feud, and that over time, bad blood boiled. When the couple inside the car got out and tried to run for safety, Neil shot them. It's hard for us to talk to her about it. One student was wounded and others were injured by broken glass. 17:40 ET (22:40 GMT) 15 noviembre, 2017. He was sprayed with glass, metal, and bullet fragments from both sides, he says, as he crouched in the front passenger side of his truck. Over two days, according to the FBI, five people were slain and 14 others were wounded, including five children at Rancho Tehama Elementary School, before the gunman, 44-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, took his own life. The result is multiple stories, many of them second- and even third-hand; some of them conflicting. [5], The killings started on the night of November 13 at Neal's home in Rancho Tehama, 6970 Bobcat Lane at Fawn Lane, when Neal shot his wife, Barbara Glisan (also spelled Gilsan) and hid her body under some floorboards. He spent most of two recent afternoons working in his yard, which has been partially subsumed by overgrown vegetation, childrens toys and assorted junk since the mass shooting. . He attacked my school," Johnston said. [29] Ghost guns are currently legal to manufacture in California, but the terms of Neal's restraining order made it illegal for him to possess them, or any other guns. [16] One student hiding under a classroom desk was shot and injured by a bullet that penetrated a wall. After Sanders sister showed up at his home and told him she heard shooting near the school, he raced there, first in her car and then on foot. [10] He had previously attempted to report his neighbors to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All of it, all of his problems are from this incident in Tehama.. Neal's mother told The Associated Press her son, who was a marijuana . Nine months before the shooting rampage, a judge had issued Neal a restraining order at a neighbor's request and ordered him to surrender his guns. Authorities have identified the man behind Tuesday's shooting spree in Rancho Tehama . But that high regard hasnt meant much for Sanders everyday life. As the truck came to a stop Neal fired at the officers, who exchanged heavy gunfire with him. The Tehama County Sheriff's Office identified the five people killed by Rancho Tehama shooter Kevin Neal. He was named locally as 43-year-old Kevin Neal. Nov 15, 2017, 03:54 PM EST. [14], Despite widespread criticism of the Sheriff's Department's handling of the case, incumbent Sheriff Dave Hencratt was the winner of the June 2018 primary race with 63.96 percent of the vote. Because it feels mostly peaceful where he lives, hell stay. . [9][8], Eleven other peoplesix adults and five childrenwere also shot, but survived. The more I heard, the more I learned about this isolated place surrounded by barren hillsides that less than 1,500 people call home. According to Ferreira, at that moment, Miss Nelson was ushering children into a storage room in the back of her classroom. And if they did he should have been supervised with an ankle [bracelet] or something! He was killed during a shoot-out with police. Rancho Tehama Reserve, where five people were killed and 14 others wounded in a shooting in November 2017. Those who were killed and wounded ranged in age from 6 to 68. The smaller ones often received far less. Gary Coronado has been a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times since 2016. Sanders explained that he and his young son used to live with friends Diana Steele and her son Danny Elliott. He was driven down by the gas station at the entrance of the Ranch where he sat inside the car for an hour. Neal was known to authorities and had at least one prior arrest. At that point, a little girl around the age of 5 was so paralyzed with fear that she was unable to move from the playground. Gage still has a poster hanging on his bedroom wall adorned with messages from his former classmates well miss you, we love you but about three years ago, he lost touch with the last friend from his California life. On one level, it looks like all is mostly back to normal in the small, rural community of Rancho Tehama in Northern California.