For the third time in two years, a worker at a mushroom farm in Half Moon Bay has threatened major violence against his coworkers, and this time the suspect had been recently fired from the farm.
Workers at the same Half Moon Bay mushroom farm, California Terra Gardens, also known as Mountain Mushroom Farm, where a mass shooting occurred in January 2023, allegedly faced threats of "execution" from a recently fired coworker in July.
The incident happened on July 24, as KRON4 reports, and prosecutors say that 24-year-old Edin Moises Guerra-Ortiz approached four men with whom he had recently worked at the farm, while they were on their lunch break. The men say that that Guerra-Ortiz, who was with his four-year-old son at the time, threatened to kill them all after they had reportedly laughed at Guerra-Ortiz over the fact that his wife had an alleged affair with another employee.
According to prosecutors, Guerra-Ortiz "shouted to the victims to kneel down so he could execute them all." And the four men were reportedly terrified after similar executions took place there about 18 months earlier.
Guerra-Ortiz had recently been fired from the farm, which was also the employer of accused mass-shooter Chunli Zhao, who faces seven counts of first-degree murder for the shootings here and at a nearby farm in January 2023.
Guerra-Ortiz allegedly left the men without committing any violence, but vandalized two of their vehicles on his way out. He was later arrested at his mother's home on July 30. He has reportedly told investigators that he was only trying to "scare" the men after they had laughed at him.
He now faces charges of criminal threats, vandalism, and child cruelty.
The shooting Zhao is accused of remains the worst mass shooting in the history of San Mateo County. Zhao, 67, is accused of murdering a coworker and a supervisor after he was told he would have to pay $100 for damages that occurred following a collision between two pieces of farm equipment. He proceeded to kill three other coworkers with whom he allegedly had some beef, and then allegedly drove to another farm where he killed two other people.
He continues to await trial at Maple Street Correctional Center in Redwood City. He admitted to the murders in a jailhouse interview with a reporter, but has since pleaded not guilty.
California Tierra Gardens now faces a wrongful death suit brought by the family of two brothers, one of whom survived the shooting, alleging that it failed to protect its workers from violence.
The shooting highlighted the issue of farmworker housing, and the poverty in which many of these workers live, just a few miles south of wealthy San Francisco.
Less than a year prior to the mass shooting, in July 2022, another worker at the same farm, Martin Medina, threatened to kill a coworker and that coworker's family. Medina, 50, allegedly went to the coworker's home and fired a bullet through the door.
Because of the closeness of the workers' housing, often in trailers, that bullet also pierced the home of Yetao Bing. Bing was then among the workers killed in the January 2023 shooting, as KRON4 notes.
Medina was convicted last month of attempted murder, and is awaiting sentencing.
Previously: Family of Half Moon Bay Shooting Victims Sues Mushroom Farm for ‘Failure to Protect Farm Workers’
Top image: A San Mateo County sheriff deputy walks through a farm where a mass shooting occurred on January 24, 2023 in Half Moon Bay, California. Seven people were killed at two separate farm locations that were only a few miles apart in Half Moon Bay on January 23. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)