A man fatally shot his 10-year-old twin sons and then turned the gun on himself, according to authorities in an ongoing murder-suicide investigation in Canoga Park.
L.A. police officers responded to a call for a shooting at 7:15 p.m. Sunday at an apartment in the 8000 block of Owensmouth Avenue, according to Los Angeles Police Capt. Mike Bland.
Inside a bedroom, they found two children and a 37-year-old man deceased from apparent gunshot wounds.
The boys were identified Monday as 10-year-old brothers, Bland said. The man is believed to be their father, and his identity is being withheld until his next of kin is notified, according to the captain.
A handgun was recovered at the apartment and will undergo forensic analysis alongside DNA and other evidence collected at the scene, Bland said. The three victims were all shot in the head, according to L.A. police radio calls made after the shooting.
Detectives from the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division are leading the investigation.
“It’s a horrible, tragic situation on the heels of the other one just over a week ago,” Bland said.
On May 27, a family of four was found dead from gunshot wounds at a home in North Hills. In that case, the 30-year-old mother, Marine Basmajian, is believed to have fatally shot her 31-year-old husband, Khajag Basmajian, 2-year-old son, Alec, and 6-day-old daughter, Ella, before shooting herself in the head, according to police and the county medical examiner.
In both residential areas, the tragedies were met with an outpouring of shock, grief and demands for answers.
In Canoga Park, family, friends and residents gathered outside the apartment complex Sunday night where one woman was seen collapsing in tears after exiting an ambulance, according to reporting from KTLA News.
“The kids never had a chance to have a life, and I don’t know why the father, if he did have issues, couldn’t have gotten help. Why?” local resident CC Pelkey told the station. “To take his children’s lives and his own life. It’s just, there are no words right now.”
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.
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