CELEBRATION TURNS TRAGIC Dad shoots dead twin sons, 10, before killing himself during birthday party in home with woman left sobbing in street
A FATHER and his two 10-year-old sons are dead after a shooting reportedly erupted during a party in an apparent murder-suicide.
The boys’ father is believed to have carried out the killings before turning the gun on himself, police said.
The horror unfolded in Canoga Park, Los Angeles, on Sunday evening.
Fire crews were called to the 8000 block of Owensmouth Avenue at around 7:15 pm after reports of a shooting.
First responders found three people dead at the scene, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The Los Angeles Police Department later said the case was being investigated as a murder-suicide, ABC affiliate KABC reported.
Officials said the father was believed to be responsible for the deaths.
Aerial footage from AIR7 showed a heavy police presence outside an apartment complex near a baseball field.
“That’s just really sad. Two little kids and a dad. That’s a family. Nobody deserves that,” one woman at the scene told KABC.
Another local, CC Pelkey, told KTLA5: “My heart is breaking for this family because this is tragic. This should never happen to anybody.”
“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,” Pelkey said.
“Why? To take his children’s lives and his own life. It’s just, there are no words right now.”
Detectives were seen moving in and out of the home for hours as they collected evidence.
Investigators are still working to determine what led up to the deadly shooting.
The home is located across the street from Lanark Park, where families had been spending their Sunday before the neighborhood was flooded with police.
Friends, relatives, and strangers stopped by the scene as word of the tragedy spread.
One woman said she felt moved to pray for the victims’ loved ones, even though she did not know the family.
“I felt like, even though we might not see their family, we thought that they needed some prayer and some thought,” she told KABC.
“I know me personally, whether I know them or not, I would want to pray for someone’s healing and just overall as a person, because that’s really sad and I don’t wish that upon anybody.”
The investigation into their deaths remains ongoing.
The tragedy comes just weeks after another Los Angeles family was found dead in a murder-suicide that authorities believe was carried out by a mother.
Marine Basmajian, 29, allegedly shot and killed her husband, Khajag Basmajian, 31, and their two young children, Alec and Ella, before turning the gun on herself around 8 pm on May 27, authorities said.
Officers had rushed to the family’s $833,000 home in North Hills after multiple reports of a shooting.
It remains unclear what sparked that deadly incident, but one neighbor suggested postpartum depression may have been a factor.
Police have not released a possible motive in the Canoga Park shooting.
