What we know about Asaahdi Coleman, suspect in Greyhound bus mass shooting in California

The accused shooter had previous run-ins with law enforcement.

There was a warrant out for his arrest.

He shouldn’t have had a gun but did anyway.

An all-too-familiar portrait is emerging about the 21-year-old suspected shooter who opened fire Wednesday night on Greyhound bus north of Sacramento, killing one person and wounding at least four others. Despite having some of the toughest gun laws in the country, Wednesday’s shooting in a region familiar with mass violence shows once again how difficult it is to keep guns out of the hands of people when such firearms remain readily available.

“You’re never going to completely stop mass shootings in a society that’s awash in guns,” said Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor who studies gun access and the Second Amendment. “It’s just not going to happen.”

Court records, social media posts and statements from law enforcement officials on Thursday paint a disturbing portrait about what led up to Wednesday’s chaos and law enforcement’s inability to intervene to stop it.

Asaahdi Coleman lived in Sacramento

Butte County authorities on Thursday said Asaahdi Elijah Coleman, 21, was from Sacramento, though public records about his time in the city are sparse. He also lived what law enforcement officials described as a “transient lifestyle” in California.

“The indication is that he has been around California a bit,” said Michael Ramsey, Butte County’s district attorney.

In a Jan. 24 photo on a Facebook page in Coleman’s name, the man mugged for a photo while holding more than $1,000 in cash. Hundreds more dollars are on his lap.

Sacramento defense attorney Linda Parisi, who has represented Coleman in two Sacramento cases, said she did not know anything about the bus incident other than what she read in news accounts.

“Mr. Coleman was staying in good contact with me,” she said. “However, as I understand it there may have been some mental issues.”

Parisi added that Coleman “does have supportive family in Sacramento,” but declined further comment.

Coleman had court cases in multiple counties

Ramsey said at the time of Wednesday shooting, Coleman had a warrant for his arrest for being a prohibited possessor of a firearm in Alameda County. He declined to elaborate at Thursday’s news conference, noting only that he had “had his brushes with the law.”

Court records reviewed by The Sacramento Bee reveal just how extensive those brushes have been.

On Dec. 9, 2019, prosecutors in Alameda County filed felony charges against Coleman stemming from a Dec. 6, 2019 incident.

Coleman was charged with unlawful gun activity, carrying a concealed gun in a vehicle and manufacture or sale of a large-capacity ammunition magazine, according to Alameda County Superior Court records. He pleaded no contest to unlawful gun activity, which prohibits gun possession after a previous drug possession conviction. Prosecutors dropped the two other charges he faced as part of a negotiated plea.

Court records show Coleman was sentenced to serve 120 days in jail starting on Jan. 1, 2020. Coleman served 47 days of that sentence and was released from jail March 8, 2020.

Coleman also has a case pending in Placer County Superior Court, where he faces a felony count of evading a peace officer and a misdemeanor count of providing false identification stemming from an incident on May 27.

And more recently, on July 21, Coleman and another defendant allegedly fled a law enforcement stop, according to records in Sacramento County Superior Court. Both were arrested, and Coleman was charged with possessing a loaded 9mm handgun with no serial number, according to court records. He was prohibited from possessing the weapon because of a 2014 robbery conviction in Sacramento juvenile court, records say.

Coleman was released from custody Aug. 19 after posting $100,000 bail.

“We can say clearly that this particular individual in no way, shape or form should have been in possession of a firearm,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. “There is a previous history of this individual, who is merely 21, engaged in this kind of conduct.”

Acted erratically the night of the shooting

Honea, the Butte County Sheriff, said Coleman boarded the Greyhound bus in Redding. He took a seat in the back of the bus as it traveled south. When the bus passed through Chico, witnesses said he took a phone call.

“I think the conversations at this point can best be characterized as him acting paranoid and agitated,” Honea said.

He then pulled out a 9mm handgun, brandished it toward passengers and began arguing with a person who he claimed was an undercover cop. Honea said that “significant confrontation” escalated from there.

When the bus pulled into a gas station in Oroville, Coleman fired “somewhere north of 10 shots,” Ramsey said. Many bullets ripped through the seats toward the front. At least one pierced the windshield.

Coleman then took off on foot, headed to a nearby Walmart and stripped naked. Video from inside the store that has circulated on Facebook shows law enforcement officers swarming on top of him and taking him into custody. “If I die, post it,” the video appears to show him saying.

Honea said investigators are looking into whether drugs, alcohol or mental illness contributed to the shooting.

Prosecutors plan to file charges against Coleman Friday afternoon in Butte County Superior Court.

Shooting unprecedented in Oroville, familiar to region

Wednesday night’s mass shooting was “a sad situation and a dire one,” said Bill LaGrone, Oroville’s chief administrator.

But it was hardly the first mass shooting in the region.

In July 2020, a gunman fired into a Walmart distribution center in Tehama County, which shares a border with Butte County. Authorities said the 31-year-old Redding man rammed his SUV into facility near Red Bluff and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing one person and wounding six others.

The man had worked at the facility but he was fired a year earlier for failing to show up for his shift. He had an outstanding warrant in Nevada as part of a 2018 firearms arrest, and he had twice been charged with battery in California.

And in November 2017, a gunman drove through the nearby community of Rancho Tehama, northwest of Oroville, firing indiscriminately. In the rampage, the man killed five people and wounded dozens more, including several students at an elementary school, before he shot himself in the head after a gunfight with deputies.

Despite a restraining order requiring him to surrender his weapons the man routinely frightened his neighbors by firing guns in the air. At least nine people brought the man’s erratic behavior to law enforcement’s attention, with few tangible results.

“The gun laws are porous,” said Winkler, the UCLA professor. “Even someone who is formally prohibited from possessing firearms can often find a way to get them.”

What’s next for Coleman

Ramsey said the exact charges that will be filed against Coleman in Wednesday’s shooting are not yet finalized. He is expected to appear in court on Friday.

Coleman remains in Butte County jail.

This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 12:52 PM.