Two women embrace outside Rancho Tehama Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on Tuesday in Corning, California. RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, California - A gunman driving a stolen vehicle and choosing his targets at random opened fire "without provocation" in a tiny, rural Northern California town on Tuesday, killing four people and wounding at least 10 others, including a student at an elementary school, before police shot him dead, authorities said.

The rampage began shortly before 8 am when the gunman fatally shot a neighbor he had been accused of stabbing in January, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.

Shortly afterward, the gunman rammed through the gate of Rancho Tehama Elementary School about 3 kilometers away and spent about six minutes shooting into the building, striking at least one student, Johnston said.

Surveillance video showed the gunman, who was not identified, trying unsuccessfully to enter the school, authorities said.

School officials' swift decision to lock the doors after hearing gunfire was "monumental" in saving the lives of countless children, Johnston said. No one was killed there.

The gunman left the school after he could not get inside and purposely crashed the stolen truck he was driving into another vehicle and shot at its occupants, Johnston said.

The shooter stole the car of a person who stopped to check on the crash and ran away when confronted with a gun. He continued the rampage until police shot him about 45 minutes after it started, Johnston said.

"This man was very, very bent on completing what he set out to do," the assistant sheriff said.

The shootings occurred in the rural community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, a homeowners association of modest houses and trailers in rolling oak woodlands dotted with grazing cattle about 200 km north of Sacramento.

Police offered no immediate word on the assailant's motive, but a sheriff's official said the shooter's neighbors had reported a domestic violence incident a day earlier. Officials did not specify who was involved or what happened.

Brian Flint told the Record Searchlight newspaper in the city of Redding that his neighbor, whom he knows only as Kevin, was the gunman and that his roommate was among the victims. He said the shooter stole his truck.

"The crazy thing is that the neighbor has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines," Flint said. "We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he's been threatening us."

Tuesday's shooting marks the 317th mass shooting in the US so far this year, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings in the country.

Data from the agency also showed 13,564 people have died from gun-related violence so far this year and 27,669 others were injured.

Over month ago, a mass shooting in Las Vegas shocked the whole country.

In the deadliest shooting incident in modern US history, the shooter killed 58 people and injured 546 others before he killed himself. The motive of the gunman, a 65-year-old millionaire, is still unclear.

Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.

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