Police in TURLOCK, California Shoot man after he beats a toddler to death

Police killed a 27-year-old man as he kicked, punched and stomped a toddler to death as others tried to stop him.

"It's been a long night of wondering, 'Why?' – not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?" sheriff's Deputy Royjindar Singh said.

Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the dead man and the child. The child was so badly beaten that he will have to be identified by a DNA test.

A couple found the man beating the boy after they saw a truck parked facing the wrong way on a rural two-lane road, Deputy Singh said. Others stopped and tried to help.

"What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking," Deputy Singh said. A sheriff's helicopter responding to emergency calls landed in a cow pasture at 10:19 p.m. carrying a Modesto police officer, who shot the man to death after he refused to stop beating the child, Deputy Singh said.