Shots Hit 2 Cars in Separate Incidents; Action Moves to Sky

Police arrested one youth and sought two others suspected of firing shots into a man’s car on Interstate 5 in Irvine on Tuesday night, ending a wild chase that began in northern San Diego County.

In another shooting on the same freeway Wednesday, a Buena Park computer software consultant swerved in front of a yellow Porsche in the Santa Ana area to avoid hitting a disabled car and was fired upon by the Porsche’s driver, the California Highway Patrol said.

The two incidents, which resulted in no injuries, were the latest in a rash of Southland freeway assaults that now total more than 30. Four people have been killed and several injured.

Meanwhile, in a new twist on the outbreak of Southern California traffic-related shootings, the pilot of a Cessna aircraft 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 coast Tuesday morning.

In the Irvine incident, 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.

Broderson said he had changed lanes in front of a pickup truck on Interstate 5 near Oceanside. The pickup gave chase, swerving toward Broderson’s car, with the occupants signaling him to pull over and showing a baseball bat, he said.

Broderson said he reached speeds of up to 90 m.p.h. during the chase and drove recklessly in hopes of attracting the CHP.

At the fork of I-5 and Interstate 405, the truck pulled beside him and a gunman, using a .22-caliber rifle with a scope sight, fired two bullets into his left rear door, Broderson said.

“I just ducked,” he said.

The 17-year-old West Covina driver of the pickup truck was arrested later near La Puente on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, authorities said. He was released to the custody of his parents.

Two more suspects who were in the truck remain at large, said Irvine Police Lt. Mike White. “I just want those guys to get caught,” Broderson said Wednesday. “Those guys are sick, really sick.”

After Wednesday’s shooting, CHP spokesman Michael Lundquist said officers removed a bullet slug from the side of James Whitler’s car.

Whitler had chased the gunman’s 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 was being sought, Lundquist said.

“He did more than we ask people to do in such situations and it was kind of risky,” Lundquist said of Whitler’s actions.

“I was extremely angry,” Whitler, 24, said later. “It wasn’t the brightest thing to do, considering he had a gun. . . . I did cut off a car, but it was a choice of hitting the (disabled) car in the fast lane or cutting this guy off.”

Airborne Incident

In Tuesday’s plane incident, FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke said the Cessna pilot claimed that the pilot of a white-and-green Citabria passed “within a few feet of his aircraft” at about 11:20 a.m. and pulled out a gun as they were flying at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. She said that when FAA investigators located the other pilot, he denied pulling a weapon.

Both pilots are employed as “fish spotters” who identify schools of fish and relay the information to fishing boats, Brekke said. Both indicated there was competition over fishing locations, she said. The Citabria pilot alleged that the Cessna pilot had dropped a brick from his plane close to the fishing boat that employed the Citabria, she said.

Neither pilot was identified.

The FAA is investigating whether federal 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.

Crackdown Sought

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

“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.

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

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn on 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.” “There’ll be no more plea bargains in these cases, and we’ll be asking for jail time” he said.

Assemblymen Dave Elder (D-Long Beach) and Paul E. Zeltner (R-Bellflower) each proposed legislation Wednesday that they hope would discourage further roadway violence. Both called for longer prison sentences and suspension of a driver’s license in freeway shooting convictions. Elder said he also wants to impound a shooter’s vehicle and use money from the state’s general fund to bolster law enforcement efforts.

Times Staff Writers Jeffrey A. Perlman and Robert S. Weiss contributed to this article.