Man Slain, Boy Abducted in Custody Fight : Winnetka: Father takes 3-year-old after a shooting incident at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, police say.

A father, apparently bent on gaining custody of his 3-year-old son, broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, ordered an accomplice to shoot the woman’s current boyfriend, and then kidnaped the child, Los Angeles police said Saturday.

Detectives were searching for Jose Luis Barajas Lopez, 27, and two unidentified men who police said escaped with the boy in a dented Nissan Sentra after the shooting Friday night.

The child’s mother, Matilda Medina, who was also shot at, escaped injury, police said. But her current boyfriend, Jose Carlos Rodriguez, 32, died in the shooting, authorities said.

Authorities said that Medina had obtained a restraining order against Lopez, and that the couple’s four-year relationship was filled with physical abuse.

“We’re looking into the possibility that when she began dating another man, Lopez didn’t want to share the child anymore,” Detective Malena Heissel said.

The incident began about 11:50 p.m. when Medina awoke to find someone breaking the window of the front room of her Saticoy Street apartment, Heissel said.

She watched as the man, who she recognized as her ex-boyfriend, climbed into her apartment, then opened the door for a second man, who was armed with a pistol, police said.

Heissel said that as Rodriguez walked from the bedroom to the front room to investigate the noises, Lopez shouted to his companion, “Fire!”

The man shot Rodriguez in the chest and killed him, police said.

As Medina ran out of the apartment, the man fired at her but missed, Heissel said.

Lopez carried the child out of the apartment, and the two men got in a car driven by a third man, Heissel said.

As of late Saturday, police had been unable to locate Lopez or the child, whose name is Freddy Lopez.

“He has a lot of friends in the area from the West San Fernando Valley to North Hollywood, and he also has friends in Mexico,” Heissel said.

One of the officers who went to Medina’s apartment Friday night had been there on a previous domestic violence call involving Medina and Lopez, Heissel said.

The detective said the couple split up about four months ago.

“There definitely was a history of domestic violence,” Heissel said. “She said that [Lopez] was free to see the child whenever he wanted, but he was apparently jealous that she had a new boyfriend.”

The car in which the boy was taken had a dent in its left front fender and was last seen heading west on Cohasset Street, near Mason Avenue, authorities said.