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Witness: Shooting victim pleaded, ‘Please, no! Please!’

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A maintenance worker at the Torrance senior-living complex where three people were found dead Tuesday in an apparent murder-suicide described pleas for mercy he heard from one of the victims.

Arturo Ramirez, who works at the Golden West Towers, said he saw a man who lived in the facility, whom he called Chuck, holding a gun.

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He locked himself in the maintenance office and called 911. He heard one of the women killed say, ‘Please, no! Please!’ and then heard two gunshots. A few minutes later, he said, he heard one more shot.

Officers who arrived on the scene found the bodies of two women and a man, said Sgt. Robert Watt of the Torrance Police Department. Employees at the facility told The Times that the alleged perpetrator was a male resident of the facility, and that one of the victims was a manager of the complex and the other was a caregiver.

One employee said the alleged shooter was prone to violent outbursts and had expressed anger toward the two who were killed.

Authorities confirmed that one of the victims was an employee at the apartment complex. They said none of the previous threats had been reported to Torrance police.

Watt did not know the ages or confirm the identities of any of the dead, and said investigators were still looking into possible motives for the killings.

Lucia Alarcon has lived in the Golden West Tower for 15 years, and was scared when police knocked on her fifth-floor apartment door, instructing her to leave. Authorities evacuated 100 residents from the building for three hours.

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‘I was surprised to see so many cops in my floor,’ she said.

And she was stunned to hear that such violence had taken place so close to home, a place she thought to be safe.

Ay dios mi,’ Alarcon said. ‘Life is too short sometimes.’

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-- Ruben Vives in Torrance

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