2011 Seal Beach shooting

On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at approximately 1:21 p.m. PDT, police responded to reports of shots fired at the Salon Meritage hair salon at 500 Pacific Coast Highway in Seal Beach, California. About twenty people were inside the salon at the time. The shooter, armed with three handguns — a 9mm Springfield, a .45-caliber Heckler & Koch, and a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29 — fired repeatedly over the course of roughly two minutes, reloading at least once. Six people were declared dead at the scene, and three additional survivors were taken to a hospital, where two later died of their wounds. A ninth victim was shot in the parking lot while sitting in his vehicle. Only one person shot survived.

The victims were identified as Victoria Buzzo, 54; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 62 (owner of the salon); Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Michelle Marie Fournier, 48; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Laura Webb, 46; and Christy Lynn Wilson, 47. Hattie Stretz, 73, was critically injured but survived. Fournier, a stylist at the salon, was the shooter's former wife; the two had divorced in 2007 after four years of marriage and were engaged in a custody dispute over their son. A court hearing recommending a near-equal custody arrangement had taken place the day before the shooting.

The suspect, identified by police as 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai of Huntington Beach, California, was arrested without incident approximately half a mile from the scene while driving a white pickup truck; he was wearing body armor at the time of his arrest. In an affidavit submitted to police, Dekraai said he first shot Fournier multiple times upon entering the salon, contradicting eyewitness accounts that salon owner Randy Fannin was the first person shot. Dekraai said he had argued with Fournier by phone that morning and that he believed David Caouette, an apparently random victim in the parking lot, was an off-duty or undercover police officer.

On October 14, 2011, then–Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced that Dekraai would be charged with eight counts of murder with special circumstances and one count of attempted murder, and that his office would seek the death penalty. Dekraai was arraigned on November 29, 2011, and pleaded not guilty. After multiple delays, he pleaded guilty to the shooting on May 2, 2014. In March 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals removed the Orange County District Attorney's Office from the case, ruling it had improperly withheld evidence from the defense, and assigned the California Attorney General's office to take over prosecution. In August 2017, Goethals ruled Dekraai ineligible for the death penalty due to prosecutorial misconduct in the case. On September 22, 2017, Dekraai was sentenced to eight terms of life imprisonment without parole and one term of seven years to life for attempted murder.

A candlelight vigil was held the evening after the shooting, and a victims' fund raised approximately $400,000. The salon reopened under the same name in November 2012, and a memorial to the victims was built in Eisenhower Park in Seal Beach in 2015.