A young father died using his body to shield his 8-year-old son from gunfire in Inglewood, Calif. Tuesday. The victim was identified on Thursday as 28-year-old Fredrick Martin.
Lieutenant James Madia of the Inglewood Police told The Huffington Post that they believe the suspects walked up and fired the shots on foot at about 7 p.m., while the father and son were standing in front of their garage.
In response, Martin pushed his son to the ground and, in the process, took gunshot wounds to his abdomen and upper torso. The father was rushed to a local hospital, where he died shortly after.
Regarding the motive of the shooting, Madia said Martin was an "upstanding guy, an employed college graduate. We have no idea why this shooting would have happened. We have been presented no evidence that would suggest that this was gang-related."
Martin's Facebook profile reveals that he studied at Texas Southern University and is married to Amanda Martin. Depicted in the photo above, their one-year anniversary would have been May 12.
When HuffPost asked for suspect descriptions, Officer Madia said, "We have received a lot of conflicting information from witnesses. We are not going to put out an official description of the suspects until we can corroborate witness accounts."
He said that there were several witnesses and, although Martin's grandmother was in the house and heard the gunshots, no family members other than the 8-year-old witnessed the shooting.
Martin's 8-year-old son had a minor bullet graze wound to his leg, but because of the heroic act of his father, he survived the shooting.
There were two other shootings that same night in Inglewood, although Madia said that the locations and facts of the shootings lead the police to believe the shootings are unrelated.
At 10:20pm, officers arrived at a traffic collision scene to find that a 25-year-old behind the wheel had been shot in the shoulder, hip and buttocks. And, at 11:30pm, a 31-year-old man was found with gunshot wounds to both legs. Suspect descriptions are unavailable for both victims.