‘Mom, I Just Killed Somebody’: Man Kills Girlfriend and Shoots His Own Family in Watts

[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]wo unrelated shootings took place Sunday, one a mile from the iconic Watts Towers and the other in East Hollywood on the 101 Freeway near Melrose Avenue, that left one dead and several wounded, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

A man opened fire on his family and shot to death his girlfriend before police wounded him with gunfire of their own on Defiance Avenue near E. 95th Street in Watts, early Sunday morning.

Video by Nash Baker.

“Today in Watts around 5:40 a.m. Southeast Div. patrol responded to a radio call, officer engaged an armed suspect and an [Officer Involved Shooting] occurred. Officers entered the residence and located multiple individuals suffering from gunfire. Victims transported to nearby hospital. No officers were injured,” according to a tweet from the Los Angeles Police Department.

A radio call prompted an LAPD patrol unit to respond to the area, where officers carried out multiple victims and confronted the armed suspect before an officer-involved shooting occurred, police said.

“Upon officers making contact with the suspect, an OIS ensued. The suspect sustained a gunshot wound. The suspect was transported to a local hospital,” LAPD Officer Greg Kraft said.

One woman was pronounced dead at the scene. A relative told media outlets the suspect, his uncle, and grandmother were hospitalized and in critical condition. A 5-year-old also suffered a minor injury.

Loved ones identified the victim as 33-year-old Shanikka Hughes. Friends and family of the girlfriend said the couple had a violent and troubled relationship, according to multiple media reports. At the scene, a woman who identified herself as the gunman’s mother, told reporters that her son called her moments after opening fire on members of their family, according to a report by ABC7.

“All he did was call and told me, he said, ‘Mom, I just killed somebody,’” said the woman who gave her name only as Cheryl. “What? Wait a minute, hold up,” she said she told her son. “'Let me go get me a beer or two ‘cause I know you didn’t say what you just said'.”

A second officer involved shooting took place later Sunday afternoon in East Hollywood, after police chased down a black range Rover from Koreatown onto the Hollywood Freeway near the Melrose exit, where  a suspect was wounded by police before he fled the scene by foot.

LAPD shut down the freeway for several hours with a police perimeter to apprehend the suspect. He was eventually caught by a K-9 unit.

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