Mass Shooting Shatters Tranquil Half Moon Bay's Sense Of Normalcy

HALF MOON BAY, CA — Just over two decades have passed since 11-year-old Danielle Flores was struck by a stray bullet during a July 4 celebration in El Granada, a tiny coastal community that neighbors Half Moon Bay.

The girl fully recovered after a .22-caliber bullet was surgically removed from her spine, but the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office nevertheless offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in a case that shocked the conscience of this tight-knit town. The case remains cold.

“That was a huge deal when it happened,” her mother, Karen Flores said.

Karen Flores has long since moved past the 2002 incident. She’s now part of a Half Moon Bay community trying to make sense of unimaginable tragedy.

On Monday, a mass shooting left seven people dead and one critically injured at the hands of a disgruntled farm worker, according to law enforcement officials. Chunli Zhao, 67, of Half Moon Bay, has been identified as the suspect in the Half Moon Bay shooting. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.

Flores and her 16-year-old daughter Kailyn Flores on Tuesday, along with 100 or so other community members, stood outside the I.D.E.S. Portuguese Hall of Half Moon Bay parking lot, where Gov. Gavin Newsom, among other public officials, held a press conference.

“I definitely had a taste of my own situation back in 2002, so I’m not like, 100 percent completely in shock,” she said.

But to say that an incident of this nature, occurring in a quiet, unpretentious community such as this, would be an understatement.

“I mean, a mass shooting in Half Moon Bay? It’s very shocking and surreal,” Flores said.

The Peninsula coast is a region many visit to get away from crime more associated with big cities, Assemblymember Marc Berman said.

“Half Moon Bay is about as close as you get to small-town America as you get in the Bay Area,” he said.

“It’s 30 minutes south of San Francisco, it’s 30 minutes west of Silicon Valley, and when you get here, you feel like you’re a million miles away from all those problems ... yesterday those problems came crashing down. That sense of peace and tranquility here in Half Moon Bay on the coast side was destroyed by senseless death, by a senseless mass shooting that should not have happened.”

Sue Holland, who serves as Pastor at Half Moon Bay’s Coastside Lutheran Church, said some congregation members she’s spoken with seemed “very shaken.”

“It seems like people are under an incredible amount of stress and trying to figure out what kind of support they need so that these types of things don’t happen again.”

Kailyn Flores, who attends Half Moon Bay High School, described a subdued atmosphere on campus Tuesday. She said teachers offered resources for those who needed grief counseling.

“It just seemed a lot quieter than usual,” she said. “Usually everyone’s happy and cheerful and there was a lot of that today, but it wasn’t as energetic as it usually is.”

She said it was hard to tell if her fellow classmates were OK.

“Most of classes we just spent the first 15-20 minutes discussing it, and then we moved on to our lesson,” she said.

“People pretty much seemed fine with it. At least it was talked about.”

Janelle Magnusson, a psychotherapist who lives in Half Moon Bay, said she’s seen a split in reactions to the shooting.

“I think for some people, it was far enough away, it was a certain population that doesn’t touch everyone, so some people are feeling really distanced from it,” she said.

“And then there are a lot of people who are really shaken by this.”

Assemblymember Diane Papan made the grim acknowledgement that Half Moon Bay is now a member of a club nobody wants to join.

“Now we’re part of that club and what worries me is that club isn’t so exclusive anymore,” Papan said.

"But I’ll tell you one thing, we are resilient, our hearts will mend, and we’ll continue to fight the fight against gun violence in California, and in the nation."

Newsom said the effects of the shooting are likely to exist on their own timeline.

“The trauma and the damage, the devastation, is felt for generations in some cases,” he said.

Half Moon Bay Vice Mayor Joaquin Jiménez acknowledged that life likely won’t be the same in this coastal paradise.

“This is something that’s going to change how we do things in our community,” Jiménez said.

“We never thought it could happen in Half Moon Bay, a beautiful community, a coastal community, but it happened.”