2 Half Moon Bay mushroom farms cited for safety violations after a mass shooting
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. - California workforce regulators cited the employees of two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay with a slew of violations after seven employees were killed in a mass shooting earlier this year.
Cal/OSHA cited California Terra Garden with 22 violations for failing to immediately notify workers of an active shooter threat and instructing them to seek shelter. Terra Garden faces $113,000 in penalties from those violations.
Nearby Concord Farms, was hit with 19 violations and $51,770 in penalties for failing to address previous incidents of workplace violence and not developing procedures to prevent them from happening.
Half Moon Bay farmworkers describe horror of mass shooting
The Half Moon Bay farmworkers who survived the mass shooting, and who had friends and family who died, have not spoken publicly until now.
In January, a disgruntled employee of California Terra Garden, who also previously worked at Concord Farms, is accused of killing seven colleagues at the mushroom farms.
Prosecutors said the suspect in the cases, Chunli Zhao, 66, may have been triggered after his supervisor at California Terra Garden there demanded that he pay a $100 repair bill for his forklift after he was involved in a crash with a co-worker’s bulldozer.
Zhao had long felt aggrieved over work-related disputes at California Terra Garden and at his former employer, Concord Farms, but the repair bill may have "lit the candle," said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.