Boy’s 911 Call Assists Parents Shot in Bakery : North Hills: The 5-year-old’s mother and father are in serious condition. Police say they won’t know details of the attack until the victims can tell them more.

A frightened 5-year-old boy, responding to his mother’s screams, dialed 911 just seconds before she and the child’s father were shot inside their bakery in North Hills, police said Monday.

Luis Rojas, 48, and Silvia Garces, 37, were in serious but stable condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where they were treated for gunshot wounds to the upper torso, Los Angeles police said.

The boy, whom police declined to identify, was in an adjacent room of the store at the time of the shooting and was not injured.

Police said Monday it was unclear whether one gunman or two were involved or whether the shooting was the result of an attempted robbery or murder. But investigators said they believe the assailant or assailants knew the victims.

“Initially it looked like a robbery, but now it looks like an attempted murder,” said Lt. Kyle Jackson of the detectives unit of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division. He declined to elaborate, except to say police have someone in custody who may have been involved in the shooting.

Jackson said police will know more once the two victims can be interviewed in depth.

The shooting took place Sunday about 9 p.m. at the Panaderia y Carniceria on Nordhoff Street near Sepulveda Boulevard. Rojas and Garces were counting money and preparing to close for the night when one or two gunmen entered the bakery and shot the two, Sgt. Bruce Cowan said.

The 5-year-old boy heard his mother screaming for him to dial 911, he said. Seconds later, the boy heard gunshots and went out to the bakery to find his parents wounded and bleeding, Cowan said.

The boy “heard dad screaming for help and his mom told him to dial 911, and he was scared but he dialed real fast,” Cowan said. Police declined to release a tape-recording of the call, but Cowan said the boy was “pretty articulate.”

On Monday afternoon, the lights of the bakery were still on, the shattered glass doors of the shop were boarded up, and the cash register drawer, which appeared empty, was still open. The floor of the bakery was littered with shards of glass, bags of potato chips, soda, a brown pair of leather shoes, and torn, bloodstained pants, a sweater and a sweat shirt.

Ken Cronon, who owns and maintains a drinking water dispensing machine in front of the bakery, learned of the shooting Monday afternoon when he arrived at the bakery to refill his machine.

“They are such nice people,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone shooting them.”