Armed couple arrested after deadly shooting spree near Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police have arrested an armed couple they say fit the description of a man and woman sought in a weekend shooting spree near Los Angeles that left one man dead and at least three other people injured, authorities said on Sunday.

The apparently random series of shootings began on Saturday afternoon following a carjacking and stretched over a five-hour period in several locations between the communities of Whittier and La Mirada a few miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Whittier police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have provided few details of the shootings, which investigators were still trying to piece together on Sunday afternoon.

One man was shot and wounded on the street by gunfire from a passing vehicle, and at least two other victims were injured nearby when suspects opened fire on their car, Whittier police said. Another man was fatally shot in a third attack investigators now suspect was linked to the others.

The sport utility vehicle believed to have been seized from its owner at gunpoint and used at the outset of the shootings was found abandoned on Saturday evening, while the suspects remained at large.

Whittier police responding to yet another report of a shooting at a hotel found a man and woman, both injured and armed, in a different stolen car, police Lieutenant Bryan Ellis said. They were arrested on suspicion of automobile theft and illegal possession of a handgun, according to Ellis.

The pair, who were not publicly identified, were under investigation for possible connection to the hotel gunfire and earlier shootings in the area, but were not listed as suspects in those cases as yet, Ellis said.

A statement posted online by the sheriff's department said, however, that the couple arrested "matched the description" of the duo sought as suspects in Saturday's shooting spree.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney)