New Car Shootings; Pilot Reports Threat

Two freeway shootings took place on the Santa Ana Freeway and a pilot reported that a gun was pointed at him from another small plane in the latest round of Orange County gun incidents.

A Buena Park computer consultant was fired upon Wednesday afternoon by a Porsche driver on the Santa Ana Freeway, less than a day after rifle shots were fired at a Camarillo motorist on the same freeway near Irvine. Both incidents involved chases.

The aircraft incident, a new twist on the outbreak of Southern California shootings, took place Tuesday morning.

Recent freeway assaults total more than 30. Four people have been killed and several injured in the shootings. No one was injured in the lastest incidents.

The target in Wednesday’s assault was driver James Whitler of Buena Park, who told the California Highway Patrol that he swerved in front of a yellow Porsche to avoid hitting a disabled vehicle and was fired upon by the Porsche’s driver.

Michael Lundquist, a CHP spokesman, said officers removed a slug from the side of Whitler’s Ford Taurus after Whitler chased the Porsche from south of the Orange Freeway in Santa Ana to the Valley View Boulevard off-ramp in La Mirada. The Porsche continued toward Los Angeles, and the driver remained at large Wednesday night, Lundquist said.

“I was extremely angry,” Whitler said in an interview several hours after the 2 p.m. shooting and chase. “It wasn’t the brightest thing to do, considering he had a gun.”

He said he had to “cut off” the Porsche because “it was a choice of hitting the (disabled) car in the fast lane or cutting this guy off.”

Whitler, 24, said after he swerved to avoid the disabled car he returned to the fast lane, heard a “prang” sound and saw a man in the Porsche putting away a handgun with a wooden handle. He said the bullet had hit the metal rod inside the door on which the car window moves up and down.

“With the kind of trajectory it was following, I would have been hurting something terrible,” Whitler said. “The good Lord was looking out for me today. . . . I had to sit down and take a beer. I was shaky for four or five hours, and I was livid. . . . The CHP did an admirable job of calming me down.”

Whitler said the freeway was crowded at the time of the shooting: “There had to be other people who saw what happened, but nobody else called it in--I could not believe that.”

The CHP said Whitler got a partial license identification for the Porsche of “2ST.”

Lundquist said anyone who may have information in the shooting should contact the CHP at 547-8313 and ask for either Jim Ward or Richard Ferrolla.

Tuesday night’s incident involved a shooting and a wild chase on San Diego Freeway from San Diego County to Irvine.

Ricocheted Inside

No one was injured in the 7 p.m. incident, although one shot ricocheted around the heads of the driver, Stephen Broderson, 19, of Camarillo and his passenger, Rachelle Sabo, 17, of Spring Valley. A door handle was blown off and a window shattered by the gunfire as Broderson tried to elude his pursuers at the northbound junction of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways in Irvine.

Irvine police were searching Wednesday for two young men suspected of firing two rifle shots into Broderson’s car, ending a wild, hourlong chase at speeds up to 90 m.p.h. from northern San Diego County to Irvine.

The 17-year-old West Covina driver of the pickup truck from which police believe the shots were fired was arrested about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday near La Puente after Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies spotted a vehicle that matched Broderson’s description of the suspects’ truck.

The teen-ager was alone in the truck when arrested. Two more suspects who were in the truck at the time of the shooting remain at large, according to Lt. Mike White of the Irvine Police Department. One is 19 years old, the other 17-20, White said.

‘Those Guys Are Sick’

“I just want those guys to get caught,” Broderson said Wednesday. “Those guys are sick, really sick.”

He said the incident began when he changed lanes in front of a silver Nissan pickup on the freeway near Oceanside. Broderson said he and Sabo were on their way to pick up his mother at Los Angeles International Airport.

The driver of the pickup and its two passengers gave chase, swerving toward Broderson’s Plymouth Horizon, signaling him to pull over and brandishing a baseball bat, he said.

As he neared Orange County, Broderson said, he gunned his car up to 90 m.p.h. and began driving recklessly, hoping to catch a police officer’s attention.

“I was really scared,” he said. “So was my girlfriend.”

When they reached the intersection of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways, Broderson said, he headed toward San Diego and then swung onto the Santa Ana Freeway in a bid to elude the truck.

The truck pulled up beside him and one of the men inside, using what Broderson described as a .22-caliber rife with a telescopic sight, fired two bullets into his left rear door.

‘I Just Ducked’

Broderson said he was startled to see the rifle. “I just ducked,” he said.

After the shooting, the pickup continued along the freeway, while Broderson drove to an off-ramp and called Irvine police to report the shooting and give a description of the truck and its occupants.

Irvine police said the truck’s driver, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was released to the custody of his parents.

Sgt. Mike Ogden of Irvine said there was a report of an altercation between the two vehicles after Broderson changed lanes near Oceanside, with the occupants of the two vehicles yelling at each other along the freeway, “probably trying to get the best of each other’s egos.”

Broderson insisted there there had been no altercation and that he did not cut the pickup truck off when he changed lanes near Oceanside.

Sgt. Scott Cade of Irvine said he does not recommend that people drive recklessly to attract attention when trying to elude a vehicle with an armed or aggressive occupant.

‘Try an Off-Ramp’

“I would recommend getting away from the suspect or offending vehicle as fast as you can. Try an off-ramp. When you continue to drive alongside the car, faster or slower or all over the freeway, all you’re doing is creating a danger to yourself and others,” Cade said.

Tuesday morning’s plane incident involved the pilot of a Cessna who reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that the pilot of another small plane pointed a gun at him as the two aircraft passed each other 30 miles off the Newport Beach.

However, when FAA investigators located the other pilot, who was flying a distinctive white-and-green Citabria, he denied pulling a weapon, said FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke. Both pilots--who were not identified--are employed as spotters for fishing boats, she said.

Both pilots indicated there was competition over fishing locations, she said. The Citabria pilot accused the Cessna pilot of dropping a brick from his plane close to the fishing boat for which he was working, she said.

‘Within a Few Feet’

Brekke said the Cessna pilot accused the Citabria pilot of passing “within a few feet of his aircraft” about 11:20 a.m. and pulling the gun as they were flying at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. The Cessna pilot radioed a description of the plane to the approach control facility at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and a Marine helicopter pilot in the vicinity spotted the Citabria but was unable to discern its identification numbers.

Following an interview with the Cessna pilot, FAA investigators tracked down the Citabria pilot at a Southland airport, Brekke said.

The FAA is continuing the investigation to determine whether FAA prohibitions against dangerous and reckless flying were violated. If there is evidence that a gun was involved, Brekke said, the matter will be turned over to the FBI, which has jurisdiction over interference with air transportation.

“It’s almost as bad as the freeways up there,” Brekke said.

The continuing traffic violence prompted the Los Angeles district attorney, the city attorney and two state assemblymen to propose stronger measures for cracking down on roadway gunmen.

“These shooters must get the maximum jail exposure possible to discourage other people from pulling stunts like these, so they realize that we’re simply not joking around,” Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said Wednesday.

Difficult Time

Reiner said he plans to urge state lawmakers to change the requirements for convicting such assailants of attempted murder. Prosecutors often have a difficult time proving that a suspect intended to kill rather than merely to scare a victim, Reiner said.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn Wednesday ordered his prosecutors to seek jail time for motorists caught with firearms.

“The new rule is going to be: Carry a gun in your car in Los Angeles, and you’re going to jail,” Hahn said. “People are going to start learning that this isn’t the Wild West anymore.”

Times staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Robert S. Weiss contributed to this article.