Alexander Alvarado.
Gunshots aimed at a family’s SUV killed a 12-year-old California boy Monday afternoon as the boy sat inside the vehicle with his parent near an elementary school where they’d gone to pick up his younger brother from an after-school program.
Police still were searching Wednesday for at least two suspects who approached the car around 5 p.m. and opened fire before speeding off, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
No motive was released.
The incident, near the Wilmington Elementary Park School in the city’s Wilmington neighborhood, fatally injured the boy, Alexander Alvarado, who later died at a hospital.
His 25-year-old parent was injured but survived.
“He was very innocent, very sweet and loving child,” said Alexander’s mother, Jenny Romero, who identified her wife, Evelin, as the adult victim, reportsCBS LA. “You don’t know what pain we feel now.”
Her wife “said it came so quick, she didn’t even know what to do,” Romero said. “She just stepped on the gas pedal real quick, but it was too late. Two bullets had already hit my son in the back. She said she didn’t even feel the one that she had in her stomach until the paramedics told her she was bleeding also.”
“She was in the schoolyard just playing,” LAPD Capt. Adrian Gonzales told KTLA. “Innocently, unknowingly, she was just a victim, just a random victim.”
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“This is such a tragedy,” Hahn said in astatement released to the media. “Gun violence has destroyed too many lives in this country and tonight it has terrorized another community. I am praying for the family of this little boy and for the recovery of the little girl and young woman.”
At a vigil Tuesday at the scene of the shooting, Romero said, “It’s hard to believe my son is not here,” according toNBC Los Angeles.
She said her wife had seen the shooter’s face, and described him as a child himself.
“I don’t know what made this guy do this … just start shooting at my car,” Romero said. “It hits my wife, hits my boy, my older son.”
She wondered aloud about the shooter’s parents, and how he had access to a gun.
“Guide them on the right path, and not have kids out there — a kid shooting kids,” she said.
Romero created aGoFundMe pageto accept donations on her family’s behalf.
source: people.com
