MANHUNT ON FOR SUSPECT IN FATAL SHOOTING
Baby was taken after killings, but found unharmed in Rolando
San Diego police launched a manhunt Sunday for a man they believe shot the mother and grandmother of his 6-month-old son before taking off with the infant from a home in Otay Mesa.
More than six hours after the boy was taken, police reported that the child had been found unharmed at an apartment complex in San Diego’s Rolando neighborhood. They did not locate his father, 31-year-old Justice Love Peace, who was considered armed and dangerous. Police believe Peace was driving a small white SUV and released home surveillance camera video that shows the vehicle. Police also released a photo of Peace, who is Black and about 6 feet tall, with a thin build.
The search for Peace, who changed his name from Jeremiah Alfred Horton in 2014, began after officers responded to a 911 call about an argument at the Otay Mesa home, on Ebersole Drive in a residential neighborhood west of Interstate 805.
While officers were on their way, the caller reported hearing gunshots.
Police found a 37-year-old woman, the mother of the baby, lying wounded in the driveway. Unsure of the gunman’s whereabouts, officers moved her away from the home. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.
Officers then got word that a second woman was inside the home and found the boy’s 65-year-old grandmother near the front door. They loaded her in a police vehicle and drove her to an awaiting ambulance, but she died before she could be taken to a hospital.
The names of the women were not released.
Told that an infant also lived at the home, officers searched for the child but were
unable to find him. A SWAT team was called out to lead an exhaustive search for Peace and the boy in the home and in the vicinity. Video shot by Onscene TV showed officers fanning out in the neighborhood and peering into cars parked along the street.
While homicide investigators did not disclose a motive for the double shooting, police Capt. Manny Del Toro said Peace was at odds with the child’s mother over custody of the boy.
Also at the home were a 13year-old girl in foster care and at least three other adults, but
police said the living situation was unclear.
Neighbors said the older of the two women who lived in the home had been taking in foster kids for years.
“There have been kids coming in and out of there for a long time,” said Dora Medina, who has lived in the neighborhood for about 30 years.
Another longtime neighbor, Martha Peña, 57, who lives three doors down, said she once told the older woman she would surely go to heaven simply based on the fact that she welcomed so many children into her home. The woman
had adopted some of the children over the years, a sign of a loving mother, Peña said.
She added that the daughter who was shot had been adopted.
Peña was listening to Mass online Sunday when she heard three or four gunshots, a lull and then more gunshots, followed by screams. She called 911.
While a homicide investigation unfolded at the home, police searched extensively for Peace elsewhere. “I can tell you there are a lot of officers looking for him,” police Officer Tony Martinez said.
Del Toro said an address listed for a car registered to Peace led police to an apartment complex on 63rd Street where they found the baby with a woman. Outside the sprawling apartment complex, near El Cajon Boulevard, a group of officers were seen surrounding the woman as she held the baby.
Steve André, who lives in an apartment complex across the street, said police vehicles lined 63rd Street as dozens of heavily armed officers geared up with equipment from a SWAT vehicle.
Del Toro said police found
the car registered to Peace — a black Prius — but did not locate Peace.
According to State Bureau of Security and Investigative Services records, Peace holds a current firearm permit and security guard license registered to an address in Hesperia in San Bernardino County. He formally petitioned to change his name in 2014.