O.C. SWAT standoff ends with father killing 3-year-old son, self

Police said the death of a 3-year-old boy and his father inside a Trabuco Canyon home Wednesday night following an hour-long standoff with a SWAT team was a murder-suicide.

The drama began about 6 p.m. when police received a 911 hang-up call from a home on Swallows Lane, said Lt. Jeff Hallock, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

When authorities arrived, a woman holding her 18-month-old baby told deputies that her husband, Luis Arizmendi, and their 3-year-old son, Sebastian Arizmendi, were still inside. She had been involved in a domestic incident inside, officials said.

But when deputies asked Arizmendi to come outside, he refused, officials said. He reportedly didn’t respond to phone calls or later attempts to communicate.

Then, sometime before 7:20 p.m., gunshots rang out. A SWAT team that had surrounded the house went in and found Sebastian and Arizmendi dead. Authorities say the father shot his son in the head and then himself.

Investigators are still trying to determine a motive for the violence, Hallock said Thursday.

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