Police Officials have recently released a statement in which they state that the think that the suspects responsible for the shooting that resulted in the deaths of six people from the Central California area, which included a young 17-year-old mother and her tiny 6-month-old baby, were part of an area drug cartel.
Officials with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office expressed to KFSN that the entire ordeal took place near Goshen at roughly 3:30 a.m. local time and that people made the call to 9-1-1 due to thinking that there was an active shooter somewhere in the area because of the insane number of shots heard by the area locals. Mike Boudreaux, the Sheriff of Tulare County, stated to the Los Angeles Times that the shooting was most likely a direct and targeted attack.
“I think it’s specifically connected to the cartel,” stated Boudreaux to the outlet. “The level of violence … this was not your run-of-the-mill low-end gang member.”
“If [they] are specifically shooting everyone in the head, they know what they are doing … [and] they are comfortable with what they are doing,” stated the Sheriff.
As of writing, the ages and names of all of the victims have not been made public, but police officials did inform the Times that a number of them appeared to be family members.
Boudreaux explained to the Outlet that one Sheriff’s deputy discovered that the youngest of the victims, a tiny 6-month-old baby, was discovered held inside of her mother’s arms laying in a ditch outside of the home where the shooting took place. Both had been killed via execution shots to the head.
another victim, an older woman, seemed to have been shot and killed while she slept, explained Boudreaux. A total of three men were also killed, one of whom was still alive by the time police made it to the scene but died later at a hospital. At least one of the men still needs to be officially identified by utilizing DNA testing because of the damage done to his face by weapons in the attack.
A group of two women were able to survive the ordeal by quickly hiding inside of a trailer home, explained the Times. They expressed to the Police that people living on the property spotted the assailants coming on surveillance cameras.
“They could see two men sneaking onto the property … but by the time they came on [the video feed], it was too late to do anything,” stated Boudreaux.
Eddie Valero, the County Supervisor, expressed that the deaths were a manifestation of “everyone’s worst nightmare.”
“These senseless acts of violence, especially with infants, children and young adults, have no place in our communities,” concluded Valero in a statement to the Times.