Officials in northern California have identified the man who shot two kindergarteners at a religious elementary school on Wednesday afternoon before turning the gun on himself, the Butte county sheriff’s office said.

The Butte county sheriff’s office shared new details of the shooting at a media briefing late on Thursday afternoon. The shooter was identified as Glenn Litton, a 56-year-old with a “lengthy criminal history” for forgery and identify theft, and a history of mental health issues, Kory Honea, the Butte county sheriff, told reporters.

The victims were Roman Mendez, six, who sustained two gunshot wounds and Elias Wolford, five, shot once in the abdomen. The injured children have a long recovery ahead, Honea said, and will probably need multiple surgeries. Still, the fact they survived is a “miracle”, he added.

“The people that truly matter during the course of this investigation are the victims. I certainly don’t want them to be lost in the overall story,” Honea said.

A GoFundMe was created to assist in the children’s medical care. As of Friday, it had raised $18,000 of the $50,000 goal.

Litton opened fire at the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists just outside Oroville, a city of 20,000 people in the state’s far north, at about 1pm. A California highway patrol (CHP) officer who arrived on the scene minutes later found a man dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Honea said.

The sheriff’s office dispatched every available deputy in the county to the scene of the shooting. The CHP officer who was first dispatched to the school arrived within 90 seconds of the first 911 call, Honea said.

Investigators have determined the Litton had an appointment with an administrator to discuss enrolling a family member at the private school, which serves about 35 students ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade in the small Butte county community of Palermo.

He was dropped off on campus by an Uber driver, whom authorities are interviewing, and the Litton’s meeting with school staff was described as “cordial”, Honea said.

“There wasn’t anything about the meeting that gave rise to concerns by the administrator,” he said.

The shooting occurred after the meeting as the students were returning to class after a lunch recess, Jocelyn Orlando, a sixth grader, told CBS News Sacramento.

“We were going in for lunch recess and basically everybody in my classroom heard shooting and most people were screaming,” she said. “We all went into the office, we closed the curtains, locked the doors, basically did what we would do in a school shooting, and then one of the teachers came and we all ran into the gym.”

Litton appears to have killed himself after the shooting, Honea said. A handgun was found near his body, which was near the slide and other playground equipment at the school.

Authorities believe the shooter did not have a connection to the victims or the school. They are trying to determine his motive but believe he may have targeted the school because of its affiliation with the Seventh-Day Adventist church. Investigators were working to reconstruct Litton’s activities before the shooting, Honea said, and were trying to contact his family before sharing his identity with the public.

Litton was accused of failing to return a rental vehicle last month, and was shortly thereafter arrested by police in San Francisco. Police found him carrying a forged driver’s license with the same name he used to schedule an appointment at the school.

He told the school he was interested in enrolling his grandson.

“It appears to us the story was a ruse to set up an appointment so he could gain access to the campus,” Honea said.

The sheriff showed footage of Litton walking on campus with his hand reaching into his jacket before he pulled a weapon out.

Litton attended an Adventist school in the nearby community of Paradise as a child. Officials have a statement believed to be from Litton in which he claims to be a member of an international alliance and he carried out the “counter-measure” in response to US “involvement with genocide and oppression of Palestinians along with attacks toward Yemen”.

But investigators, who are working with the Department of Homeland Security, believe the shooting was an isolated incident and highlighted Litton’s history of mental health issues. He appears to have also considered targeting a Seventh-Day Adventist school in a nearby town, Honea said.

Butte county has been the site of repeated tragedies in recent years – largely deadly wildfires, including the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people, and the North Complex fire. In 2022, a man opened fire on a Greyhound bus, killing one person, a 43-year-old traveling with her two children, and injuring four others, including a pregnant woman.

“Here we are again in Butte county dealing with another major incident, major tragedy,” Honea said. “This community has endured so much in the last three years, it’s hard to believe we’re back here again.”