Farmworker who survived mass shooting at Northern California mushroom farm sues company and owner
apnews.com
A migrant farmworker who survived a mass shooting at a Northern California mushroom farm has filed a lawsuit against the farm and one of its owners.

Pedro Romero Perez, 24, was in the shipping container that served as his and his brother’s home at California Terra Gardens in Half Moon Bay when authorities say Chunli Zhao barged in and opened fire, killing his brother Jose Romero Perez and shooting him five times, including once in the face.

Prosecutors say Zhao killed three other colleagues at the farm on Jan. 23, 2023, after his supervisor demanded he pay a $100 repair bill for damage to his work forklift.

They say he then drove to Concord Farms, a mushroom farm he was fired from in 2015, and shot to death three former co-workers. Zhao pleaded not guilty during his arraignment in February.

The lawsuit by Pedro Romero Perez and another lawsuit by his brother’s wife and children against California Terra Garden, Inc. and Xianmin Guan, one of its owners, say there was a documented history of violence at the farm and that the company failed to take action to protect workers after another shooting at the property involving a then-manager in July 2022.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240409121834/https://apnews.com/article/california-farm-shooting-farmworker-lawsuit-2e1979754372bd095d72240f192682bd

  • DominusOfMegadeus
    11•2 months ago

    OK, this is all simply atrocious, but…why are Farm workers living in shipping containers? That can’t be legal, can it?

    • @Woozythebear
      8•2 months ago

      Farm workers don’t have any rights under the law that most other workers do. You are legally allowed to treat them as slaves. It’s why most farm workers are illegal immigrants, it’s because no one in their right mind would choose to work at a farm if they have the option to work literally anywhere else.

      • @BottleOfAlkahest
        6•2 months ago

        This is also why it’s so ridiculous that the far right is always hosting about illegal immigrants “stealing” jobs. No they fucking aren’t, US citizens aren’t being turned away from migrant farm work in droves because no one actually wants to be treated that way and US citizens have protections and recourse.

    • SeaJ
      3•2 months ago

      You can convert a shipping container to be liveable. It takes a good chunk of work though. That said, many migrant living conditions are not in good enough condition to be considered legal. Gebbers Farms here in Washington was “fined” over $1 million for not having liveable housing for their migrant workers. Fined is in quotes because they worked out that they would spend over a million on housing and pay a $10k fine. So they worked it out that pretty much all they had to do was build the housing they fucking should have in the first place.