Woman Is Shot to Death Saving Grandmother’s Life

On the last night of her life, when a family argument heated up and her uncle allegedly pointed a shotgun at his mother, Dawn Agler used the only shield she had to save her grandmother’s life: She stepped in front of her.

A few minutes later, Agler, 27, lay dead in a shooting that shocked the family’s quiet working-class block in Duarte.

Her uncle, Steven Agler, 47, was being held without bail Sunday on suspicion of murder.

“Maybe she thought he wasn’t going to shoot her,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Boris Nikolof, who related the department’s version of events.

“The poor thing. She always looked so small and fragile,” said Concepcion Turcios, 62, a garment worker who lives next to the Aglers. “What happened here is very sad.”

Turcios, who speaks only a few words of English, said she was making tamales in the kitchen as her family watched television Saturday night when a man who she believes is Agler’s grandfather banged on her door. Frightened and out of breath, he needed to use her phone to call the police, she said.

“He was still in his stockinged feet,” Turcios said. “He told me--partly in English, partly in Spanish--that the young man was shooting at his mother. He was very upset.”

The victim’s grandmother fled the house unhurt, returning later to find her granddaughter dead in the kitchen, Nikolof said.

The suspect drove away in his mother’s car and was pulled over and arrested by Irwindale police, Nikolof said.

Turcios said the Aglers were friendly, but something of an English-speaking island in a Spanish-speaking immigrant neighborhood.

“They didn’t have much to do with the rest of the people here,” she said.

The incident was one of several weekend shootings. In Norwalk, two men died and another was injured at a gathering in a home early Sunday, sheriff’s deputies said. Another man died after a drive-by shooting Saturday night in Pico Rivera, according to authorities.

In Pomona, in what was believed to be a gang-related incident, a 60-year-old woman and her grandson were shot in a drive-by shooting as they relaxed at home Saturday night, Pomona police Sgt. Michael Irving said. Neither was seriously injured, and they were released early Sunday after treatment at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.