4-year-old boy killed in road rage shooting, 2 arrested

LANCASTER, Calif. — A 4-year-old boy died Friday after being shot in a road rage incident in California, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

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Authorities identified the boy as Gor Adamyan, according to KNBC. In a GoFundMe campaign started to help support his family, Gor was described as “a vibrant four-year-old boy whose life was tragically cut short.”

“The family right now is totally devastated,” family spokesperson Miguel S. Coronado told KTLA. “They’re confused, in and out of awareness … and in disbelief that this happened to their family.”

The incident happened around 7:30 p.m. Friday as the family was going to buy groceries, according to investigators and the Adamyan family. Deputies said the boy and his parents were in a vehicle when they were cut off by another driver, who then began to follow them through the streets.

The driver later pulled up alongside the family’s car and began shooting, authorities said.

Gor, who was sitting in the backseat, was shot in his upper torso. His mother and father, who were also in the vehicle, rushed him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“It’s unimaginable,” Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris told KABC. “This could have been any of our families. It could have been any of us.”

Gor died 10 days before Christmas.

For the family, “The Christmas trees, and the presents and the food – all of that is meaningless because they don’t have their child,” Coronado said, according to KTLA.

At a vigil held to remember Gor on Monday, Coronado told KTTV that the boy’s parents were “here, but they’re almost dead in spirit, dead in soul. Dead in life.”

Deputies arrested Byron Burkhart, 29, and Alexandria Gentile, 27, after they were tracked to a hotel one day after the shooting, according to KTTV and officials. Jail records show they were each being held on bails of $2 million.