Woman and 2 children found dead in California home after shooting, standoff with police
"Our gunfire had nothing to do with the death of the children," a police sergeant said.
A woman and her two children were found dead early Saturday after a shooting with police and an hours-long barricade in an Ontario home, authorities said.
The children were killed in “an act” that happened before police arrived at the house, said Ontario Police Sgt. Bill Russell, declining to elaborate further.
“Our gunfire had nothing to do with the death of the children,” he said.
The identities of the woman, described as a probation officer with San Bernardino County, and the children, a teenage girl and an elementary school-age boy, were not immediately released.
County spokesman David Wert declined to provide information about the woman, citing the ongoing investigation.
“All the county can say at the moment is that we are keeping the children and their surviving loved ones in our prayers,” Wert said.
Authorities said a man had dialed 911 for a medical emergency about 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Paramedics, along with Ontario police officers, arrived at a home in the 1300 block of East F Street, where they found the man with gunshot wounds, Russell said. The man was later identified as the woman’s husband.
After the man left the house, walking over to authorities and medical personnel, two Ontario police officers saw the woman standing behind a screen door armed with a handgun, Russell said. Two officers shot at the woman from outside the home. It was unclear whether the woman fired at police.
“Whether she had fired on officers or if she just had a gun, officers did fire on the female,” Russell said.
Neighbors living next door awoke to the sound of the gunshots.
The officers watched as the woman retreated into the house.
As additional law enforcement units poured into the area, sirens stirred more of the neighborhood awake. And for hours, officers called to the woman using a bullhorn, pleading for her to come out.
“At the time, they just kept telling her, ‘We just want to talk with you.’ That’s what we kept hearing,” said Tanya Avalos, 22 as she sat wrapped in a blanket on the front porch of her home on the block of the shooting.
Officers were unable to communicate with the woman or the children, who officers were later aware of, Russell said.
Avalos and other neighbors had gathered on the sidewalk outside the house throughout the early morning hours, but eventually returning to their homes as the activity waned, the officer’s voice still blasting toward the woman.
As sunlight began to fill the sky, Avalos said she heard the loud pleas to the woman suddenly cease.
“And that’s when we figured something had happened, ’cause they weren’t asking her anymore,” she said.
Update: Ontario Police have made entry into the home and discovered the suspected female and two juveniles are deceased inside the residence. Investigators is on-going.
— Ontario Police Dept. (@OntarioPD) December 14, 2019
About 7:30 a.m., five hours after the standoff began, police entered the home and found the woman and her two children dead inside.
The woman had several gunshot wounds, but investigators did not know whether they were self-inflicted or from the earlier police gunfire.
Investigators recovered a handgun inside the home. They were still trying to piece together what unfolded before law enforcement arrived.
No officers were injured. The man was taken to a hospital with life-threatening gunshot wounds, Russell said. He was unable to speak with officers.
Relatives of the victims came to the home throughout the morning.
A pair of churchgoers were there to lend a prayer.
Marie Cabrera, a member of The Way World Outreach Church in San Bernardino, along with another church member, rushed over to the Ontario house as soon as they heard news of the shooting.
The pair prayed with the relatives of the injured father, a ministry the church provides during sudden tragedies throughout the region.
“We pray for comfort, we pray for peace of mind,” Cabrera said while standing next to the yellow crime scene tape strung throughout F Street, light rainfall floating through the air. “And we just let them know that we’re here to support them and if they need anything, we’ll help them.”
Staff writer Brian Rokos contributed to this story.