Asia-Pacific

3 dead in S California shooting

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-06-20 11:08

LOS ANGELES?- A man walked into a Southern California fast food restaurant and shot his stepdaughter and her family of four as they ate lunch together, killing the woman's husband and 8-year-old son before fatally shooting himself Saturday afternoon, police said.

The 56-year-old man arrived at the Del Taco restaurant in San Bernardino on a bike at about 1 p.m., walked over to a table and opened fire at his 29-year-old stepdaughter, her 33-year-old husband, their 6-year-old son and their 8-year-old son, San Bernardino police Lt. Jarrod Burguan said.

The woman's husband was declared dead at the restaurant and the 8-year-old was declared dead at a hospital, San Bernardino Fire Department spokesman Steve Tracey said.

The woman and the 6-year-old boy were hospitalized in critical condition, Tracey said. The names of the victims and the shooter weren't released.

Police said several other people were in the restaurant, but the gunman clearly walked in seeking the four victims. They said the gunman had a long and violent criminal record, but did not give further details.

Owners of nearby businesses said horrified patrons streamed out of the restaurant after the shots were fired.

"I saw some people yelling and all of a sudden I heard 'boom, boom, boom, boom'," Jorge Garcia, who works at a recycling trailer in the same parking lot as the restaurant, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "I saw two employees run out of the employee door and then I saw eight or 10 people run out of the restaurant and across the street."