Violent past of father who killed 3 children
Police in Lake County were reeling Monday after a Clearlake father on probation for domestic violence and failing to register as a sex offender shot his four young children, killing three of them, and then turned the gun on himself.
The children, ages 4, 2 and 9 months, died of gunshot wounds, but a 5-year-old was found alive amid the carnage. Their father, Ricardo Garcia Lopez, 39, was found dead in the driveway from a selfinflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
He had been arrested twice before on spousal battery charges and was barred from possessing a gun.
The horror began shortly after midnight Sunday when the children’s mother called 911 and told police that her husband was firing a gun outside the family home on the 4700 block of Yarrington Court, in the rural town of Clearlake, about 110 miles north of San Francisco.
Clearlake police Sgt. Tim Hobbs said the woman, whose name was not released, fled when Lopez, who worked as a laborer, began his rampage.
“She ran away to get help,” Hobbs said in a statement.
When police arrived they found Lopez in a pool of blood in the driveway, the apparent murder weapon by his side. His four children were inside an SUV parked outside the home, Hobbs said.
The 5-year-old was alive despite suffering a gunshot wound to the chest and was rushed to Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital and then flown to a trauma center in another county. The child was listed in stable condition Monday, according to police.
Detectives did not say what kind of gun Lopez used or how he obtained it, but he was no stranger to local police.
Lopez was arrested March 10 on a felony charge of attacking his wife. He later pleaded guilty to battery on a “non-cohabitating partner,” according to Lake County Superior Court records. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and barred from owning or possessing a firearm, and a restraining order was issued, court clerk Luanne Hayes told the Associated Press.
He was arrested again on May 24 on charges of spousal battery, a misdemeanor, and released on $25,000 bail, but he failed to show up for his July arraignment and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest, Hayes told the AP.
Lake County sheriff ’s records show that Lopez had failed three times to register as a sex offender, but the details of that case were not available.