A gunman opened fire on his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend as they were unloading groceries outside a Chula Vista Costco in a brazen ambush that sent shoppers diving for cover.

The shooter then turned the weapon on himself, and later died, police said. His targets were rushed into surgery and are expected to survive. The woman’s baby, in a stroller at her side, was unharmed.

Several people called 911 just before 1 p.m. to report the shooting in the bustling Costco parking lot on Broadway near Naples Street, said Chula Vista Lt. Dan Peak.

Officers arrived and found three wounded people near a cluster of cars. All three were taken to a hospital. The shooter, whose name has not been released, died shortly before 2 p.m. The couple, also not publicly identified, went into surgery with “serious injuries” Monday afternoon. The baby was picked up by family members.


Police don’t know what sparked Monday’s shooting. Peak did confirm witness accounts that the gunman approached the victims from behind, but couldn’t say whether the assailant had been lying in wait.

At least two witnesses said the gunman had placed a Gatorade bottle over the muzzle of the handgun in an apparent attempt to quiet the sound.

The midday shooting left bystanders shaken.

“A guy was shooting,” witness Min Chen said. “A guy was holding a gun and shooting a woman.”


Chen said she and her husband had just arrived at the warehouse store parking lot when the gunman started firing. Her husband ordered her to hide near the front end of their car. She heard perhaps 10 shots.

After the gunman shot himself, Chen said her husband rushed to him and grabbed the gun. “I was so scared,” she said.

Chen said the injured woman took a seat on the edge of her car, her lips pale. Chen’s husband, a retired fire captain, helped the injured boyfriend to the ground, telling him, “I’ll be with you. Don’t worry,” Chen said.

Chula Vista resident Angela Shelton said she was a passenger in a pickup truck that was backing out of a parking spot when she saw a woman clutching her chest. Shelton said she believed the woman was having a heart attack, and watched as a man went to help her.


Suddenly that man was shot, she said. She then looked on as the gunman, who Shelton said was dressed in a blue shirt, black vest and black pants, approached the couple and fired repeatedly.

Shelton had initially gotten out of the truck when she believed the woman was ailing, but when shots were fired she quickly got back in. The pickup truck had several bullet holes.

“I could have been shot too,” she said. “It’s very scary.”

Ricardo Esquivias, a resident of Chula Vista’s Eastlake neighborhood, said he was walking in the parking lot toward the food court when he heard yelling.


“It was escalating, getting louder and louder,” he said. Then he heard four or five gunshots.

“I saw everybody running after that,” he said.

The attack comes just days after a fatal shooting at a Costco in Corona involving an off-duty Los Angeles police officer.

In that incident, an officer shopping at Costco with his family Friday night fatally shot a 32-year-old man and injured two of the man’s family members. Corona police said the officer was attacked while holding his young child.


Authorities said the assault was unprovoked and led the officer to fire his weapon, killing Kenneth French and wounding his two family members, whom a relative identified as French’s parents.

The officer suffered minor injuries in the confrontation and was taken to a hospital and later discharged. His gun was the only weapon involved in the incident and specifics about what led up to shooting have not been made public.

Staff writer Karen Kucher contributed to this report.

