Another mass shooting in Los Angeles, Father kills wife, 5 kids and self

[Liberal_in_LA]

December we had the Santa Clause shootings. Now this.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/27/family.dead/index.html


Seven bodies found in home, reports says

Bodies of five children, two adults found in Los Angeles home

All children were under the age of 10, Los Angeles Times reports

Father is believed to have killed children and their mother, then himself

Man is believed to have called media outlet before committing suicide


LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The bodies of five children and two adults were found Tuesday in a home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, and authorities are investigating the case as a murder-suicide, CNN affiliate KABC and the Los Angeles Times reported.

Authorities responding to a call of a shooting found multiple family members inside the home shot to death, Los Angeles police Officer Sam Park told CNN. He said the investigation was ongoing, and would not say how many family members were inside or divulge their ages.

All the children were under the age of 10, according to the Los Angeles Times. They and their mother were fatally shot inside the home, apparently by the children's father, police told the newspaper. The man is believed to have committed suicide after calling a news media outlet. The outlet -- which was not named -- notified police, the newspaper said.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Once again, the magic number appears.......

Seven.

The last three incidents were two dead, five wounded.

This time, alas, they're all dead.

Kids. How can a parent hurt a child? I will never comprehend that kind of rage.

Believers, pray for these children.

[NMDemDist2]

2. was it rage? or despair?

this sounds like a guy at the end of his rope and no longer able to hang on.

tragic either way, 5 kids under the age of 10 :cry:

[ejpoeta]

16. but why take your family with you.

i just don't understand. children. killing children!! wtf is wrong with people!! breaks my heart.

[demosincebirth]

31. I agree, killing children is terrible, but killing your own is something else

[madmom]

15. I noticed that myself and wondering..?

[malaise]

21. Expect many more such murder-suicides

in this economy. Some men are angry with wives or ex-wives but there are others who see no way out and don't want to leave their children.

[MineralMan]

3. I fear we are going to see more of this,

as the economy worsens. I hate it.

[bdamomma]

4. but to take out your whole family you have to be pretty desperate to it.

[MineralMan]

5. Of course you have to be desperate...

Many people are desperate. I'm not excusing anything...just pointing out that desperate people do desperate things.

Imagine some guy who was living on the edge, barely able to keep his family in food and shelter. Then, suddenly he loses his job...someone gets sick...the house burns down...whatever. Suddenly he sees no options.

Maybe he's already suffering from one of the depressive illnesses. Now, he can't even afford treatment. He doesn't know about programs that could help him and his family survive.

So, he takes out his firearm, kills everyone, then himself. His reasoning, if you can call it that, is that everyone's better off.

As I said, I expect more of these stories...maybe a lot more.

[stuckinlodi]

6. The Programs to Help Are All Gone.

County mental health programs disappeared in CA 10-15 years ago.

[slackmaster]

10. That is not true

http://dmh.lacounty.gov/

[stuckinlodi]

22. That's surprising.

It went away in San Joaquin County. There may be a website that says otherwise, but the department doesn't exist.

[slackmaster]

29. LA County is still relatively well funded

So is San Diego County, which has extensive mental health programs (which I worked for briefly a long, long time ago).

[MineralMan]

11. Actually, there is help out there, but

you have to be on top of your game to work through the bureaucracy to get it. Catch-22 is that if you need it, you're not at the top of your game. So...way too many people fall through the cracks, often with bad results.

[Rebubula]

14. Family killings

These assholes, referred to as 'Family Annihilators' have been pulling this sick shit since the beginning of time.

I know that it may make it easier to deal with when this stuff happens to blame it on the economy or something else, but some people are just evil assholes - The Santa killer is a case in point.

The economy sucks and people are hurting, but I feel that using them as an reason for violent behavior is off base.

[Raskolnik]

27. I don't think we know enough about this to know whether this was a case of an "evil asshole"

or an utterly broken person that committed a horrible act.

[BreweryYardRat]

28. *cough*History major*cough* 'Family Annihilators" since the beginning of time were usually...

...USUALLY, not always, doing it in response to an invading army or something similar. If it's a choice between letting your women and children be gang-raped for hours and then murdered by a bunch of guffawing, slobbering barbarians (or guffawing, slobbering "civilized" people), and killing them yourself quickly and as painlessly as you can, then it's understandable.

In response to losing your job, however, it's disgusting and incomprehensible.

[WI_DEM]

7. too bad he just didn't kill himself.

[MineralMan]

9. Agreed, but that wouldn't have dealt with what really

bothered him. Odds are he couldn't cope with not being able to provide for his family. Had he killed just himself, their situation would have been worse, in his mind.

OTOH, it could be that this case was caused by some other crap, like a messy divorce and a fight over child support and custody. That's another cause for these murder/suicide deals.

It just sucks!

[dysfunctional press]

30. if he had decent insurance, he may have been worth more dead than alive...cash-valuewise.

that's how some people end up looking at it.

[aquart]

8. Five under the age of ten? One every two years?

Maybe he wouldn't have been so stressed if he'd ever used a condom.

[shanti]

12. two sets of twins n/t

[WatchWhatISay]

13. condoms are for people who dont want children

nothing wrong with having a large family if you can handle the repsonsibility of it. In this case, at this point in time, however it appears this guy couldn't.

But I don't see any reason to criticize everyone who chooses to have a large family.

[nini]

17. so sad.......... here's more details

:cry:


http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11563787

[Sultana]

23. So, sad

:cry:

[Critters2]

34. So beautiful! So sad!

:cry:

[hologram]

18. And yesterday he was a law-abiding gun owner.

Just keeping and bearing arms like any other good law-abiding citizen.

[Raskolnik]

24. If you think a tragedy like this should be used to make a cheap political point,

you need to reevaluate your standards.

[nini]

26. thanks

I started to say something similar but was too disgusted to think of anything that wouldn't get me banned.

[MineralMan]

32. This is not a gun control issue.

It's another issue, altogether.

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. Update: Fax claimed Kaiser Permanente Supervisor said: ""you should have blown your brains out."

According to Channel 7, the faxed letter detailed workplace problems both the man and his wife were having at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in West Los Angeles. The letter said that an unnamed administrator told him one day that he shouldn't have come to work and said "you should have blown your brains out." The man said in the letter that he complained to his union to no avail. Then both he and wife were fired, Channel 7 reporter Gene Gleeson said in summarizing the letter.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/4-children-moth.html

[malaise]

20. Thanks George

"This was a financial- and job-related issue that led to the slayings," Garner said. "In these tough economic times, there are other options. In my 32 years, I've never seen anything like this."

---------------
Birth control might have helped this family.

[Arkansas Granny]

35. I doubt that the number of children in the family had any bearing on what happened.

[Sultana]

25. .

:wtf:

We are going to be hearing a lot of cases like this :(

[4 t 4]

33. He and his wife

had just lost their jobs and they didn't want the kids to end up with strangers. How sad my god. Thanks * more blood on your hands. Hope you sleep well tonight.

[Mike 03]

36. It's horrible. But this is becomming common again, just as it was during prior economic

crises. As I wrote in another thread, go to Google News and type in "murder-suicide" and just see how many stories come up.

These stories are not only happening in the U.S. but the U.K. as well now.

It's not that big of a surprise, really.

[Mike 03]

37. It would be important to know what he wanted to tell the media.

There are a couple of books that might shed light on these sorts of crimes, for anyone interested:

Crime Classification Manual, Second Edition, by Douglas, Burgess and Ressler
The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. Thanks for the info.