Shooter's family expresses grief and surprise
Edwin Rivera spent many a day hanging around his family's Welby Way home in the San Fernando Valley watching TV, playing video games and shooting the breeze with friends who came by to shoot baskets and drink beer on the back patio.
He was the son of immigrants; he got into fistfights, had a hard time in school and later had trouble holding a job, according to those who knew him.
Thursday, friends and relatives were struggling to comprehend a bloody shooting at the Rivera home that left at least five dead, including a veteran Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officer.
There was some confusion about the shooter's identity, partly because Edwin Rivera and his brother Edgar were close in age and looked alike. Edwin Rivera was described as about 5-foot-9 and 280 pounds; his once-shaven head had given way to bushy hair.
Four law enforcement sources, who declined to be named, and several relatives said Edwin Rivera was the gunman. However, Ed Winter, assistant chief of the coroner's office, said officials had not formally identified any of the victims. There was still considerable confusion, he said, about the birth dates of the brothers.
The carnage began Wednesday evening, when the shooter apparently opened fire on relatives before calling police and urging them to come get him. After barricading himself in the family home and firing repeatedly at officers, he was shot and killed by a police sniper, according to LAPD sources.
Friends and relatives insisted that Edwin Rivera had not appeared emotionally disturbed and wasn't involved with gangs or drugs.
"He would space out sometimes," said Jose Ortiz, 21, who met Rivera at Taft High School and remained friends with him after they both dropped out of school. "But he didn't show any signs of mental problems."
Edgar and another brother, Andy, along with the boys' father, Gerardo, were believed to be among the victims, family members said.
The Rivera brothers' parents emigrated from El Salvador 25 years ago. Their sons were born in the United States, according to relatives. Gerardo owned a trucking company, where both Edgar and Andy worked, family members said.
Edwin was 20 years old, according to several sources, and had moved among four high school campuses.
He had trouble with English in school, according to Ortiz. Officials said he enrolled in Reseda High School for ninth grade, then moved to Taft High for 10th grade but left before completing the year. He was supposed to return to Reseda High but never did.
