Police investigating a report of shots fired on Monday found two dead and a child critically injured in a South Arlington apartment complex.
Workers at Magnolia Commons called police shortly before 11 a.m. Monday, after hearing shots from 845 S. Frederick St., the southernmost building in the complex. Neighbors also said they heard four shots from the building.
When they arrived at the scene, officers found an adult man lying dead outside a first-floor apartment in the building. After forcing open the door of the apartment, they found a woman, also deceased, inside. Nearby, a 2-year-old boy suffered from one or more bullet wounds to his abdomen.
The child was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Washington, where he underwent emergency surgery. Tuesday, he remained in critical but stable condition. He was not the son of either the man or woman involved in the shooting, and his parents were with him in the hospital.
The dead man was identified as Filemon Guadalupe Martinez, 30, and the woman was Vilma Gloria Martinez, police said.
The shooting arose from "a domestic incident," said John Ritter, an Arlington police detective and a spokesman for the department. Police were investigating the shootings as a murder-suicide, with Filemon Martinez as the primary suspect.
"The luxury of this situation is, we have no reason to believe someone’s running around with a gun," Ritter said.
By Monday afternoon, police had searched the apartment, and discovered a handgun that may have been used in the shootings.
Police tape encircled the apartment building and the nearby parking lot, sealing some residents off from their homes. Officers escorted residents in and out of the building where the shooting took place.
As school let out, that brought Laurie Baker, principal of Campbell Elementary School, to the scene. The complex was home to some of her students, and they were having a hard time getting into their apartments due to the investigation.
"I’m just here to make sure somebody meets all of them," Baker said.
Magnolia Commons residents, many Latino, watched the investigation as the day dragged on. The ethnic make-up of the area, and the backgrounds of the deceased, led police to call in Spanish-speaking officers, to conduct witness interviews, said Matt Martin, a police spokesman.