This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A suspect in a series of shootings that killed three people within the span of an hour in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles was taken into custody following a standoff, police said.

The suspect was taken into custody on Sunday by SWAT officers after holing himself up in a house for about an hour, Captain William Hayes said.

Hayes declined to say what led officers to the house or whether any evidence was found inside. Witnesses had reported seeing two men in a tan- or gold-coloured SUV at two of the three crime scenes in the San Fernando Valley area.

“I can’t tell you whether there was a second individual, we’re following all clues and leads at this time,” he said late on Sunday.

Police said the victims appeared to be randomly targeted by the same gunmen because the same type of weapon was used in the morning attacks and the suspect shot at victims from inside a car.

In the first attack, a family of five in a car on their way to church was struck by gunfire at 5.50am local time in San Fernando. The family had pulled over after noticing the suspect driving erratically when they were shot, Segearnt Frank Preciado, a police spokesman, said.

A woman in her 20s was killed, her mother and father were critically wounded and two children sustained minor injuries from either bullet fragments or broken glass, Preciado said.

About 40 minutes later, a man was fatally shot at a Sylmar park.

Then 15 minutes later and less than five miles (eight kilometres) away, a woman in her late 50s sitting in a parked car by a church was shot in the head. Preciado said she may have been waiting for someone.

The shootings triggered an intense investigation and prompted the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to step up patrols on the street.

Investigators were looking into whether Sunday’s attacks were related to at least two shootings earlier in the week, Preciado said.