VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — Authorities are searching for at least two suspects who shot and killed six people — including a 17-year-old mother and her 6-month-old baby — at a central California home Monday in what the local sheriff called a “horrific massacre” related to drugs and gangs.
Few details were available Tuesday, including which gangs may have been involved and the results of a narcotics search warrant that sheriff's deputies executed at the home last week.
“We also believe this was not a random act of violence. We believe this was a targeted family,” Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said Monday at a news conference.
Samuel Pina said his teenage granddaughter, Alissa Parraz, and her baby, Nycholas Nolan Parraz, were among those killed.
“I can’t wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this,” he told The Associated Press.
Pina said Parraz and her baby were living with her father’s side of the family in Goshen, and that her dad’s uncle, her dad’s cousin, her grandmother and her great-grandmother were also killed.
He said the family is in shock.
“It comes in big waves,” he said.
Deputies responded around 3:30 a.m. Monday to reports of multiple shots fired at the residence in unincorporated Goshen, just east of Visalia, the sheriff's office said. Goshen is a semirural community of about 3,000 residents some 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Fresno in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.
“Actually the report was that an active shooter was in the area because of the number of shots that were being fired,” Boudreaux said.
Deputies found two victims dead in the street and a third person fatally shot in the doorway of the residence, Boudreaux said.
Three more victims were found inside the home, including a man who was still alive but later died at a hospital, he said.
