CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / SUN VALLEY

A woman barricaded in her home for hours Saturday was found dead about 4 p.m. of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

A SWAT team from the Los Angeles Police Department attempted to make contact with the unidentified woman for several hours, but she did not respond, said Officer Karen Rayner. There was no one else in the house, she said.

Police were called early in the day by neighbors who said the woman had fired gunshots and refused to come out of her home. The SWAT team surrounded the house in the 11700 block of Saticoy Street, near Lankershim Boulevard, but police did not know at first whether she was armed or if anyone else was inside.

-- My-Thuan Tran