The daughter occupies perhaps the most painful position in the entire case.
She was not simply a witness.
Both people involved were her parents.
The woman bleeding inside was her mother.
The armed man refusing police commands was her father.
She had seen the conflict.
She had reportedly seen her father pursuing her mother.
She saw the shooting or its immediate aftermath closely enough to know what had happened.
Then she escaped.
Once outside, she became a source of information for the police trying to arrest her own father.
She gave them his phone number.
She explained his weapons.
His work.
His lack of military experience.
His jealousy.
The recording device.
The accusations.
She tried calling him.
At the same time, she knew every piece of information might help police confront him.
The emotional contradiction is almost impossible to overstate.
Wanting your father to surrender does not mean wanting him dead.
Wanting police to save your mother means helping them reach the man who shot her.
The title of the source frames the daughter as leading police toward her father's rampage.
But she was not behaving like an investigator.
She was a daughter trying to keep what remained of her family alive.
The Ten-Year-Old Boy
Then there was the younger child.
Ten years old.
Police asked him questions adults normally answer.
Who is in the house?
What kind of guns does your father own?
Does he have military experience?
Where is your mother?
He had just escaped from an armed domestic shooting.
Yet he still helped police.
Then, after professional negotiators had difficulty convincing Jose to surrender, the boy called his father.
We do not know exactly what he said.
That uncertainty actually makes the moment more powerful.
There is no need to invent a perfect line.
Something in that conversation mattered.
Minutes later, Jose changed course.
Maybe hearing his son's voice broke through anger that police could not reach.
Maybe Jose realized the boy was safe outside.
Maybe the conversation forced him to see the consequences of continuing.
The source does not establish his precise internal reasoning.
What it establishes is sequence.
The boy called.
They spoke.
The call ended.
Jose contacted officers.
He said he would surrender.
Adults with weapons surrounded the house.
A child helped end the standoff.
Why Police Did Not Rush In
This part of the case will always generate emotion.
Lizette's friends asked the obvious question.
Why wait?
She was bleeding.
Every minute mattered.
The officers' answer reflects the fundamental problem of active barricades.
A wounded person inside does not remove the armed suspect.
The rescuer has to pass through the same danger.
Police knew Jose had fired toward them.
One round had nearly hit an officer.
The drone had been deliberately shot.
The house contained multiple windows and elevated positions.
If several officers rushed in and Jose killed them, police would suddenly have multiple wounded people and potentially less ability to save Lizette.
That does not make waiting emotionally satisfying.
There is no satisfying tactical choice when someone injured is trapped behind a gunman.
It means every option contains danger.
The job is to choose the danger most likely to prevent additional deaths.
In this case, police chose containment and negotiation until Jose surrendered.
When they finally entered, Lizette was dead.
The source does not establish at what exact time she died.
Without that information, no honest retelling can claim an earlier entry definitely would have saved her.
It also cannot claim with certainty that earlier entry would not have.
That uncertainty is part of the tragedy.
Five Casings
Five spent 9mm casings lay near Lizette.
That physical evidence mattered.
911 had reported shooting.
The children described shooting.
Officers heard gunfire.
Jose later admitted shooting his wife.
Now the bathroom contained the physical aftermath.
The scene would need to be photographed.
Casings collected.
Weapon recovered.
Bullet paths examined.
Blood documented.
Every detail transformed a family tragedy into a prosecutable homicide case.
Domestic murders often happen in spaces designed for privacy.
Bedrooms.
Bathrooms.
Kitchens.
The same rooms where couples live ordinary life become forensic scenes.
Here, the bathroom became the place police finally located Lizette.
For her children, that house could never again simply be home.
Shooting at Police
The charges did not concern only Lizette.
Police alleged Jose had also fired toward officers.
Two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a law-enforcement officer were eventually filed in addition to the murder accusation described in the source.
That reflects a separate legal harm.
Once Jose directed gunfire outward, the case expanded beyond domestic violence.
An officer approaching the house nearly became another victim.
The round reportedly missed by less than an inch.
Change the path slightly and the entire story becomes different.
The standoff could include a dead sergeant.
Police might respond more aggressively.
The children might witness their father being shot.
A single inch can separate one version of history from another.
The officer survived.
That allowed police to maintain the objective they had from the beginning.
End the situation without creating another death.
Shooting the Drone
The drone incident also reveals Jose's state of resistance.
A drone cannot arrest anyone.
It cannot shoot him.
It was an observation tool.
Yet Jose allegedly fired at it.
For police, that confirmed several things.
He was tracking movement outside.
He was willing to use ammunition.
He was not simply hiding passively.
And he could potentially hit officers approaching from angles he could see.
The destroyed drone also removed one of police's safest sources of information.
Every time technology fails in a standoff, human officers must compensate.
Someone must take a position.
Someone must observe.
Someone must move closer.
The threat becomes personal again.
"The Shots Were From the TV"
During negotiations, Jose reportedly claimed some of the gunfire police heard came from a television.
This statement was difficult to reconcile with reality.
Officers had direct evidence of gunfire.
The drone had been hit.
An officer had nearly been struck.
Why say it?
The source offers two possibilities.
Manipulation.
Or detachment from reality.
Neither can be proven solely from the statement.
It is also possible Jose was simply attempting to minimize what he had done.
People in crisis sometimes deny facts that seem undeniable.
The negotiators' response was tactically important.
They did not waste valuable time saying:
"We know you're lying."
Confrontation may satisfy the listener.
It does not necessarily produce surrender.
They kept talking.
"My Son Is Inside"
Then Jose claimed his ten-year-old boy remained inside.
Police knew better.
The child was physically outside with them.
Again, they had to decide how to use that information.
If Jose genuinely believed the boy was inside, correcting him aggressively could increase instability.
If he was lying, challenging him might simply end communication.
Negotiators kept the conversation moving.
In crisis negotiation, factual victory is not always the goal.
Behavioral change is.
Put the gun down.
Walk outside.