LOS ANGELES — A man who was detained as a person of interest in a series of apparently random shootings that killed three people in suburban Los Angeles was booked on animal-cruelty charges Monday as detectives worked to link him to the three homicides, a police spokesman said.
Alexander Hernandez, 34, of Sylmar, was being held in lieu of $1 million bail on the animal-cruelty case, but he has not been charged with the shootings that killed two women and one man on Sunday and injured four others, Los Angeles police spokesman Bruce Borihanh said.
The dogs were killed Saturday, and the person who shot them drove a vehicle similar to the one witnesses described at two of the three crime scenes on Sunday, a tan or gold-colored SUV with tinted windows. The weapon used, a shotgun, was also the same, police said.
Police have not released the victims’ names because relatives are still being notified.