According to a police statement, three young boys and two adults were fatally shot while another boy was wounded in a domestic dispute that turned into a shooting on Saturday in southeastern San Diego.
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During a press conference, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said, “The police responded to a home in the Paradise Hills neighborhood after getting a 911 call where no one spoke, but an argument could be heard in the background, where they found a 3-year-old boy along with mother and father dead inside early Saturday morning. Meanwhile, three other boys of the ages 5, 9 and 11 were taken to a hospital where two of them died.”
San Diego Police Lieutenant Matt Dobbs said,
“When the officers arrived on the scene, they were able to look into one of the windows and see a small child inside covered in blood. The third boy who was taken to the hospital underwent emergency surgery.”
He further added that the couple got in an argument on Saturday morning after the mother obtained a restraining order against the father on Friday. After shooting the family, the father turned his handgun on himself.
However, the police did not release the names of the victims.
Dobbs said, “It’s still very early in the investigation, but it appears to be a tragic case of domestic violence murder-suicide.”
Police said they had responded to a “disturbance over property” at the home just a couple weeks earlier on Nov. 1, when the man — who was not living at the home — showed up asking the woman for tools. Officers at the time provided the woman with information about how to obtain a restraining order.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer called the tragedy “terribly sad.”
“All of San Diego mourns for the family and the surrounding neighborhood,” Faulconer tweeted. “This senseless act of violence goes against everything our community stands for and we will get through this together.”
