2 arrested in shooting death of 3-month-old

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- A triple shooting that took the life of a 3-month-old baby in East Palo Alto this weekend was apparently the result of mistaken identity. Police have arrested a 17-year-old in the case thanks to cooperation from the public. Police believe a 16-year-old suspect was the accomplice. He is in custody on a weapons charge.

Ivonne Garcia Lopez is just 22 years old and feeling a pain no mother should ever know.

"They destroyed my family, they killed my baby and they killed part of my soul, too," said Lopez.

Lopez was in a car with her husband and two children early Sunday morning. They were driving away from a baby shower on Wisteria Drive in East Palo Alto when police believe two suspects opened fire. Lopez used her own body to protect her 4-year-old son Izahia and 3-month-old baby Izack.

"I protected the 4-year-old with my body and I thought that I had protected my baby in the car seat, but one of the bullets went into his head and I didn't even realize it until I saw him crying and I saw him bleeding from his head," she said.

Investigators say the shooting was a case of mistaken identity stemming from an assault last month in Redwood City.

"Believing that those two individuals that beat him up in Redwood City were in that car, fired upon the car as it was leaving the scene," said East Palo Alto Police Capt. Jeff Liu.

Even as she deals with her own grief, Lopez says the tragedy goes beyond her family.

"I don't know why they picked on us," she said. "They should be in school learning, getting themselves to be prepared to be somebody in life, not killers."

Police, as well as the family, are thanking the community for coming forward with information. They are hoping that additional community tips, as well as physical evidence, will allow them to make an arrest of the second suspect for murder.

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crime, east palo alto, shooting, child death, peninsula news, karina rusk

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