Nov. 17 (UPI) — Five people are dead and one injured after a man shot dead his estranged wife and three children before turning the gun on himself in San Diego on Saturday morning, police said.
“As a husband and a father, this instance is very difficult for me to even think about,” San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. “As hard as it is to share this news we want to reassure the neighbors and the community that we are not looking for a suspect. This was a domestic dispute involving one family.”
Nisleit said at the family’s request, police are withholding the names of the individuals involved.
At 6:49 a.m., police said they received a 911 call from a residence in the Paradise Hills neighborhood of San Diego. The caller did not speak, but the dispatcher could hear yelling in the background.
Police made their way to the scene after they heard a second 911 call from a neighbor calling to say he heard arguing and what sounded like a nail gun firing.
Officers found the bodies of a 31-year-old man, a 29-year-old and a 3-year-old boy. Three boys, 5, 9 and 11 were transported to a local hospital, where two died, according to Lt. Matt Hobbs, of the San Diego Police Department’s homicide division. The 11-year-old is still in the hospital and immediately underwent emergency surgery.
Hobbs said the adult victim obtained a restraining order against the shooter Friday.
“We do not know if the suspect had been served, but we do believe he was aware of it,” Hobbs said.
The shooting took place inside a guest house adjacent to a home owned by other relatives. It is not clear how many people lived on the property,
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that police were last called to keep the peace at the house Nov. 1, when the estranged husband had arrived to ask his wife for tools at the house.
Counseling is being provided to the first responders who arrived at the scene, Nisleit said.
