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Charles Wade, 22, 9-year-old Demitrius Wall'neal, and 6-year-old Londynn Wall'neal were killed in a car during what a detective called "a targeted assassination."
Police launched a search for suspects Wednesday after the fatal shooting Tuesday night at an apartment complex on the southeast side of Columbus, Ohio.
Two armed suspects approached the vehicle the three victims were in and fired into the car "without any apparent warning or provocation," said police.
The three victims were pronounced dead at 6:45 p.m., approximately 30 minutes after the first calls to 911 about gunfire, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Terry Kelly, the Columbus homicide detective heading the investigation, said the evidence suggests the fatal shooting wasn't random.
"It does appear to be a targeted assassination," Kelly said. "And there's no other way to say it."
Police Chief Elaine Bryant asked people with any information about the incident, especially about who's responsible and what happened, to come forward.
"This isn't snitching," Bryant said. "This is humanity."
The two children were siblings but police have yet to say what their connection was to Wade.
"Whoever did this are cowards and need to be found, arrested, and held accountable. Nothing can bring these babies back. But we can still ensure these shooters never do something like this again," Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin tweeted Wednesday.
"There's a mother now that will have to go on in her life with two young babies that she no longer gets to raise," said assistant police chief LaShanna Potts.
The union representing Columbus police officers said the city's approach to public safety isn't working, noting the city's record homicide rate, along with Tuesday's triple homicide and the ambush-style shooting of a U.S. marshal Wednesday morning that injured the marshal. Officers returning fire killed the suspect.
"If law and order are not reestablished, this trend will lead to more innocent lives lost," Brian Steel, the Columbus Fraternal Order of Police vice president, said in a Wednesday statement.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther noted the city is making historic investments in police and fire hiring. The city graduates a class of 40 new officers in January with plans to hire 170 more officers next year.
Spiking violence in Columbus and cities nationally is unprecedented, and "requires new strategies, new techniques, and new tools, and we're committed to doing that," Ginther said Wednesday.
Last month, for example, Ginther proposed spending more than $5 million next year to provide an alternative police response to 911 calls involving mental health and addiction crises.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
