Sheriff's officials defended a dispatcher's decision not to send a patrol car when a terrified woman called 911 to say she had been warned her estranged husband was on his way to kill her.
Within minutes of the call, the man burst into his wife's 27th birthday party, shot her and three other women to death, seriously wounded two other party guests and sent several children diving for cover, deputies said.The shooting suspect, Raymundo Navarro Jr., 26, surrendered about five hours later at his father's apartment in East Los Angeles, deputy sheriff Chris Wahla said Monday. Navarro was booked for murder and held without bail.
Minutes after receiving a telephoned warning about 10:30 p.m. Sunday from her husband's brother that the man was on his way over to kill her, Maria Navarro called 911. The dispatcher said nothing could be done unless someone actually was at her house.
About 11 p.m., Navarro sneaked through the back door of the small house where his wife had been living with her family and burst into her birthday party, firing a pistol at her family and friends, authorities said.
Killed were Maria Navarro, her aunts Francisca Arizpe, 62, of Los Angeles, and Maria Garcia, of Mexicali, Mexico; and a family friend, Leticia Dipp, 46, of Los Angeles.
In a trembling voice, Maria Navarro told the deputy who answered the phone that she had a restraining order against her husband, but she was told that authorities could do nothing until the man showed up at the house.
The deputy asked if Navarro had shot anyone. Maria Navarro said he had not come to the house yet but added, "Yes, I'm sure he will."
The deputy said, "OK, well, the only thing to do is just call us if he comes over there . . . I mean, what can we do? We can't just have a unit sit there and wait and see if he comes over."
"Oh my God," Maria Navarro said.
Sheriff's Sgt. Lynda Edmonds, a department spokeswoman, defended the dispatcher's response.
"You have to make a judgment call over whether a threat is emergent or immediate," Edmonds said. "If he was there with a gun, that would have gotten a real immediate response.
"People get threatened all the time, but that's a fact of life."
Investigators and neighbors said Navarro, an unemployed former Marine, and his wife argued often and were in the midst of a divorce.
Marie Lizarde, 18, who lived across the street from the shooting scene, said Navarro's wife had moved into the house with several sisters and her mother some time ago.
Lizarde speculated the gunman may have been upset about the divorce and the fact that the woman would not let him see their three small children.
"They had broke up and he was out on his own," said Lizarde. "She didn't want anything to do with him."
Other neighbors and friends said Navarro drank heavily and often got into fights. Documents filed by his wife to obtain the court order that was to keep him 100 yards from her or the children listed a history of wife-beating and threats to kill the children.
A close family friend, Berta Galvan, 47, was in very grave condition at County-USC Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the head. A guest, Richard Covarrubias, was in serious condition at the same hospital with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.