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Police Search For Motive In Restaurant Shootings

A forensic technician photographed a window pierced during a fatal shooting Saturday in San Bernardino, Calif. (William Wilson Lewis III/ The Press-Enterprise via Associated Press)

LOS ANGELES — Police searched for a motive yesterday for a fatal shooting at a San Bernardino restaurant in which a gunman attacked his stepdaughter’s family, killing her husband and 6-year-old son, and then fatally shooting himself.

The woman and another child were wounded in the attack.

Jimmy Schlager, 56, arrived at the Del Taco restaurant in San Bernardino on a bike at about 1 p.m. Saturday, walked over to a table, and fired several shots at his 29-year-old stepdaughter, her 33-year-old husband, and their sons, ages 5 and 6, San Bernardino police Lieutenant Jarrod Burguan said.

“There was a very brief exchange of words, then he opened fire,’’ Burguan said.

Coroners officials said that Alex Trujillo and his son Adrian were killed. The woman and the 5-year-old boy were in critical condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center, a San Bernardino Fire Department spokesman said.

The woman’s mother, who was married to Schlager, died several years ago, and investigators were trying to determine how well Schlager and his stepdaughter got along, Burguan said.

Police said between five and seven employees and several other customers were in the fast food restaurant, but the gunman clearly walked in seeking the four victims and no one else was injured.