4-year-old boy killed in road-rage shooting in front of his parents
A 4-year-old boy was shot dead in front of his parents in a devastating road-rage incident that saw the suspects pursue the family’s car on a California highway before opening fire, authorities said.
The deadly confrontation unfolded just before 7:30 p.m. Friday along the Sierra Highway in the Los Angeles suburb of Lancaster.
A mother, father and their 4-year-old son were traveling along the road when another driver cut them off and then began chasing them, according to a statement from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
“While being pursued by the suspects, the victim driver slowed his vehicle, at which time the suspect driver pulled up along the passenger side of the victim’s car and began shooting,” the agency stated.
One of the bullets fired by the road-rage suspect hit the child in the upper body while he was riding in the backseat of his family’s vehicle.
The parents rushed the boy to the hospital, where he died.
The young victim has not been identified as of Monday pending the results of an autopsy.
“It’s unimaginable that this could have been any of our families,” Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris told the channel ABC7. “It could have been any of us.”
Investigators used the city of Lancaster’s recently installed crime prevention camera system to track down the car involved in the road-rage shooting, resulting in the arrests of a 29-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman in connection with the boy’s death.
The suspects have yet to be unidentified, and there was no immediate word on what may have prompted the road-rage incident.
Cops said no other suspects were being sought and no other injuries were reported.
