The portrait of the 47-year-old quarry worker and single dad that emerged Thursday — a day after he gunned down three co-workers and wounded seven other people — was not that of a spiritual, peace-loving man who snapped. It was one of a coldblooded killer who sheriff’s officials said kept a handgun at home hidden in the cutout pages of a Bible.
Sheriff’s officials revealed Thursday that Shareef Allman used a rope and piece of plywood to jam shut a door and trap about a dozen co-workers in a trailer at a Cuperitno quarry during a predawn meeting Wednesday. Then he began shooting.
While on the run a little more than an hour later, Allman made a walkie-talkie call back to the terrified survivors. His message: He was coming back to finish them off, according to sheriff’s officials.
He never returned. Wednesday’s massive hunt for Allman moved about five miles away to a neighborhood across the street from a Hewlett-Packard campus. A surveillance video released Thursday by the Sheriff’s Office shows Allman walking past a liquor store with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
Soon after, sheriff’s officials believe he placed assault rifles in two hiding places and left a shotgun in the trunk of his 1999 Mercury. Sheriff’s officials said Thursday they believed he could have been preparing for a final shootout.
Carrying a bulging bag of ammo, he next turned up in the HP parking lot, where he shot a 60-year-old woman in a botched carjacking. Then he disappeared.
Deputies finally confronted Allman about 7:30 a.m. hiding behind a car in a driveway.
Sheriff Laurie Smith did not specify whether the gunman fired any shots, saying those details are being investigated by the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. She did say that the suspect displayed his gun to deputies “in a threatening manner.”
A relative of the family who lives at the house said her daughter’s dog, Choco, began barking shortly before 7:30 a.m. The
daughter looked outside and saw a man crouching in the driveway, according to Grace Chu. Chu said her daughter waved to two passing patrol cars. Just moments later, Allman lay dead in the driveway.
Killed in Wednesday’s shootings were Mark Muñoz, 59, of San Jose; John Vallejos, 51, of San Jose; and Manuel Guadalupe Piñon, 48, of Newman.
Allman had filed a discrimination complaint with federal regulators against the cement plant about a month before Wednesday’s shootings. But details about the allegations were not immediately available.
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