A young mother who police said allegedly shot her two boys — killing her 5-year-old and critically wounding her 1-year-old — shouted “I’ve wasted my life!” from her balcony, according to a neighbor.
The woman, believed to be in her mid-20s, called 911 about 8:30 a.m. Saturday and told the dispatcher that she had killed her children. When officers arrived at the three-unit apartment complex on the 7200 block of South Gramercy Place, the woman was standing on a second-floor balcony waving a handgun.
Police have not yet confirmed her identity.
[Updated at 1:08 p.m.: Police identified the woman as La' Tonya Dixon.]
After hearing the woman scream, next-door neighbor Sandra Jones said she saw her on the balcony rail and yelled out, “No, don’t jump! You have [your son] and the baby to think about! They’re going to need you.”
As officers arrived at the beige stucco apartment, the mother told police to shoot her. She was walking in and out of her apartment with the handgun, police said. Officers ordered her numerous times to drop the gun, but she refused. At one point she climbed on the balcony rail and stood on it, as if preparing to jump, police said.
At one point she put the gun on the balcony floor and officers quickly tackled and arrested her, police said.
Inside the living room they found the body of a 5-year-old boy. The younger boy had been shot multiple times and was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he is in critical condition, police said.
Neighbors said the woman walked her always-smiling oldest son to school every day, with the baby, Michael, in tow.
“He’d be so proud to go to school,” Jones said. “She was a wonderful mom. She was a wonderful mom. I just don’t know what happened.”
Danielle Jones, 17, whose 2-year-old son would play with Michael, said she hadn’t seen them outside for about a month. “She closed the doors and it would be all dark,” she said.
At 4:30 this morning, she heard the mother arguing loudly to herself. Jones said she was known to talk to herself. And then, at 8 a.m., they heard gunshots.
---Tami Abdollah reporting from South Los Angeles
---Andrew Blankstein
Photo: Ben Dixon, left, brother of the woman who allegedly shot her two children, speaks with police. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
