Children among the dead

THIS ENTRY HAS BEEN CORRECTED 2-25-08 11:18 P.M. and again at 11:32 p.m.

[BYNAME]By Brian Day and<QA0>
Frank C. Girardot
<MC>Staff Writers
[BODY]BALDWIN PARK — Police arrested a man after a shooting incident Monday night that left two women and a 4-year-old child dead and two other children wounded in two homes in the 14500 block of Rockenbach Street.
The <NO1>man who was arrested <NO>suspect was not identified. The surviving victims were taken to a local hospital, but their conditions were not known, authorities said.
They were described as a 9-year-old and a 14-year-old.
Police responded to a report of shots fired about 7:30 p.m., said Baldwin Park police Capt. Michael Taylor<NO1><NO>. The officers discovered a total of three people fatally wounded and two others who had been shot, Taylor said.
<NO1>Both of the dead children “were very young,” Taylor said.
<NO>The shooter, who was armed with a handgun, apparently went from one house to the other during the rampage, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Dan Rosenberg.
<NO1>“This was a tragic event in a quiet neighborhood,” Taylor said.
<NO>A dispatcher at the Baldwin Park Police Department said all available units had been dispatched to the scene.
The shootings may have stemmed from a family dispute, officials said.
<NO1>“The son shot the mom,” said a man who identified himself as the son-in-law of one shooting victim.
<NO>A call to the Baldwin Park Police Department at 7:28 p.m. indicated that a man had shot his mother.
“The suspect got into an argument with his mom,” Rosenberg said. “He then went next door and shot the neighbors.”
<NO1>Other family members were apparently talking to police detectives following the shooting, authorities said.
<NO>Several officers from the Irwindale Police Department were dispatched to the scene. Additional units from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were called in to handle crowd and media control.
Immediately after the shootings, a man, who appeared to be in his 20s, sat outside the home where the incident took place and cried out:
“In my house. In my house. My neighbor,” the man said, pointing arriving firefighters in the direction of the victims. “Please hurry up. Hurry,” he said. “There might be time to save them.”
Police with automatic rifles patrolled the working class neighborhood in the moments after the shooting as multiple reports of shots fired flooded in from other homes in the neighborhood.
Family members tried to force their way in at the crime scene, but detectives held them back. More than one broke through crime scene tape.
In the aftermath, family members consoled one another.
<NO1>Several had questions that police were unable to immediately answer.
<NO>“Where’s my dad?” one man asked.
[TAG1]brian.day@sgvn.com
frank.girardot@sgvn.com
<MC>(626) 962-8811 Ext. 2718, 2717
http://www.insidesocal.com/sgvcrime