Man Kills Son, Self in Redondo Beach

A Redondo Beach man, apparently despondent about setbacks in his medical career and personal life, fatally shot his 5-year-old son and then killed himself with the same handgun Monday, police said.

Osvaldo Bloise, 53, a cardiologist from Brazil, was in despair over his inability to find work as a doctor in the United States and upset about his relationship with his wife, according to authorities in the beach town.

Bloise also wounded his 7-year-old son when a bullet apparently intended for Bloise’s own temple grazed the boy’s head. That child was treated at a hospital and released Monday.

Relating interviews conducted by detectives, Redondo Beach Police Sgt. Phil Keenan said that family members described Bloise as being “very depressed lately” and that he had been fighting with his wife.

But Keenan said he has no idea why the father of four took the life of Samuel, 5, whom neighbors said frequently could be found riding happily on his father’s shoulders throughout the family’s apartment complex in the 2700 block of Ruhland Avenue.

Two other children also were in the apartment during the Monday morning shootings and were not wounded.

After he was grazed in the head, 7-year-old Lucas ran into the next room, where his 14-year-old sister and 15-year-old brother were going about their morning routines.

The three children then fled to a neighbor’s apartment and called 911. Bloise’s wife, who police declined to identify, was at work at the time of the shooting, police said.

Officials at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where police say Bloise worked as a cardiology technician, refused to discuss his job status or the shooting.

Family in U.S. for Seven Years

Police said the family has been in the United States for seven years. Neighbors said the family had lived in the apartment for about three years.

“Samuel used to come over here and play all the time,” said George Valenzuela, who lives across the street.

“The saddest thing was when I saw the little boy carried out by the coroner. The father they carried out on a stretcher. But the little boy they carried out in their arms.”

After she heard about the shooting, Bloise’s wife returned to the family’s north Redondo complex and took refuge at the apartment of fellow Brazilian immigrants.

Bloise’s wife declined to speak with reporters as did the family friend sheltering her.

Across a small courtyard, police officers and coroner’s officials streamed into the family’s clean, sunny apartment, decorated with framed landscape photographs by Ansel Adams and strewn with children’s toys.