LOS ANGELES, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A man charged with killing two dogs is a "person of interest" in the killing of three people a day later, Los Angeles police said Monday.
Alexander Hernandez, 34, who lives in Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, was arrested Sunday on an animal cruelty charge. Investigators said his tan SUV, described by the owners of the dogs, resembled the description of a vehicle by witnesses to the shootings Sunday in the Valley.
Sunday's shootings were apparently random. One victim, a young woman in a wheelchair, was driving to church with her family when someone shot into their SUV, killing her and wounding other family members.
"I heard shots...and I looked out the window, and then I saw a man right there that was bleeding," Pauline Gaitain, who lives nearby, told KTLA-TV. "The SUV went right by and they shot them. So they took her out, poor thing...she was dead."
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The second victim, a man, was collecting bottles and cans outside a recreation center. The third, a woman, was in her car outside her church.
Los Angeles Police Department Cmmdr. Andy Smith said Hernandez has also become a "person of interest" in two shootings last week, one in Atwater Village and one in Pacoima.
The family whose dogs were killed Saturday said the shooter was a man driving a tan SUV who had broken down outside their house a few days earlier. They said he gave his name as Andy.
Hernandez had not been charged with homicide Monday afternoon. He was being held in lieu of $1 million bail.
