Crime & Safety
Cartel Suspected In Massacre Of Calif. Family
Investigators seized guns and drugs at the home days before gunmen killed the family including an infant and sleeping grandmother.

VISALIA, CA — The massacre of a family of six in the Central Valley Monday is believed to be the work of an unspecified drug cartel, sheriff's officials said Monday.
Six people — including a 17-year-old mother and her 6-month-old baby — were killed in a shooting early Monday at a home in central California, and authorities are searching for at least two suspects, sheriff's officials said.
The mass shooting was carried out just days after authorities served a search warrant at the home, seizing guns and marijuana and methamphetamine, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said.
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“I think it’s specifically connected to the cartel,” Boudreaux told The Los Angeles Times. “The level of violence … this was not your run-of-the-mill, low-end gang member.”
“We also believe this was not a random act of violence. We believe this was a targeted family,” he added.
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Such high-profile, extreme cartel violence seen south of the border is rare in California.
Deputies responded around 3:30 a.m. to reports of multiple shots fired at the residence in unincorporated Goshen, just east of Visalia, the Tulare County Sheriff's Office said.
“Actually the report was that an active shooter was in the area because of the number of shots that were being fired,” Boudreaux told reporters.
The sheriff said investigators are searching for at least two suspects.
Deputies found two victims dead in the street and a third person fatally shot in the doorway of the residence, Boudreaux said. Three more victims were found inside the home, including a man who was still alive but later died at a hospital, he said. There were two women who survived the attack by hiding in a trailer when they saw the shooters approach on footage from security cameras, the Times reported.
Two of the victims, the young mother and her child, were shot in the head, the sheriff said. Deputies reportedly found the teen mother cradling her baby. An elderly woman was found shot to death in her bed.
Samuel Pina said Monday that his teenage granddaughter, Alissa Parraz, and her baby, Nycholas Nolan Parraz, were among those killed.
“I can’t wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this,” he told The Associated Press.
Pina said Parraz and her baby were living with her father’s side of the family in Goshen, and that her dad’s uncle, her dad’s cousin, and her grandmother and great-grandmother were also killed.
He said the family is in shock.
“It comes in big waves,” he said.
Goshen is a semi-rural community of about 3,000 residents 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Fresno in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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