VENICE : Father Shot to Death While Driving Children to School

A Venice man was shot and killed Friday morning as he drove his children to school, Los Angeles police said.

Anselmo Cruz, 30, was driving his car about 8 a.m. through an alley behind the Sunset Avenue apartment building where he lived when a gunman wearing a ski mask ran up to the vehicle and shot Cruz several times, police said. He died at the scene.

In the car were Cruz’s two daughters, ages 7 and 9, and a neighbor’s 7-year-old child, said Detective Cedric Wilder of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division.

Bullet fragments struck the foot of the neighbor’s child, who was treated at UCLA Medical Center and released. The other two children suffered cuts from broken glass and were treated at the scene by paramedics.

Wilder said the children could not provide a detailed description of the gunman. Police are asking anyone with information to call detectives at (310) 202-4506, or (310) 202-4501 after hours.