California shooting: 3 dead, 4 hurt in ritzy LA neighborhood

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three people were killed and four others wounded in a shooting at a multimillion dollar short-term rental home in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood early Saturday, police said.

The shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m. in the Beverly Crest neighborhood. This is at least the sixth mass shooting in California this month.

Sgt. Frank Preciado of the Los Angeles Police Department said earlier Saturday that the three people killed were inside a vehicle.

Two of the four victims were taken in private vehicles to area hospitals and two others were transported by ambulance, police spokesperson Sgt. Bruce Borihanh said. Two were in critical condition and two were in stable condition, Borihanh said. The ages and genders of the victims were not immediately released.

Investigators were trying to determine if there was a party at the rental home or what type of gathering was occurring, Borihanh said.

Borihanh said police have no information on suspects. With the shooting over, the block was sectioned off as investigators scoured for evidence.

The mid-century home is in Beverly Crest, a quiet neighborhood nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains where houses are large and expensive. The property, estimated at $3 million, is on a cul-de-sac and described in online real estate platforms as modern and private with a pool and outdoor shower.

LAPD Officer Jader Chaves said the department did not know if the house had a history of noise or other party-related complaints.

The early Saturday morning shooting comes on top a massacre at a dance hall in a Los Angeles suburb last week that left 11 dead and nine wounded and shootings at two Half Moon Bay farms that left seven dead and one wounded.

Last Saturday, 72-year-old Huu Can Tran gunned down patrons at a ballroom dance hall in predominantly Asian Monterey Park, where tens of thousands attended Lunar New Year festivities earlier that evening. He drove to another dance hall but was thwarted by an employee. Many of the dead were in their 60s and 70s.

Tran later killed himself as police closed in on the van in which he sat.

On Monday, a man shot and killed four people at the mushroom farm where he worked, then drove to another farm where he had previously worked and killed three people there, authorities said. Chunli Zhao, 66, is in jail and faces murder charges in what police called a case of workplace violence.

The killings have dealt a blow to the state, which has some of the nation’s toughest firearm laws and lowest rates of gun deaths.

For the third straight year, the U.S. in 2022 recorded over 600 mass shootings in which at least four people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

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Previous versions of this report incorrectly stated this was the fourth mass shooting in California this month.

Richard Vogel, The Associated Press