Mistaken Identity Blamed in Killing of Reseda Man

Friends and relatives of Michael James Altoonian, the 20-year-old Reseda man fatally shot early Saturday by a passenger in another car, said Sunday that he was the mistaken victim of someone else’s fight over a smashed rear-view mirror.

“The bullet was meant for one of the other two guys in the car with him,” said Altoonian’s mother, Arden. “One of the guys, when we saw him at the hospital, kept saying, ‘It was meant for me, it was meant for me.’ ”

The events leading up to Altoonian’s death apparently began March 9 at the Malibu Grand Prix amusement center on Nordhoff Street in Northridge. The center, which features electronic games, pinball and a race track for miniature cars, is a hangout for some of Altoonian’s friends.

Several of the friends, speaking Sunday on the condition that their names would not be used, said that on March 9 five men in their early- to mid-20s “terrorized” the Grand Prix.

A manager at the amusement center refused to comment Sunday on the incident or any of the subsequent events.

Says Men Were Armed

One 19-year-old woman who was there on March 9 said that all of the men were armed, one with a gun, one with a knife and three of them with nunchakus, martial arts weapons consisting of two long pieces of hard wood or pipe connected by a cord.

“We’d never seen them before,” said an 18-year-old man who was there at the time. “They came in and started threatening people.”

One of the visitors smashed the outside mirror on a pickup truck in the parking lot. The truck’s owner called police. Altoonian’s friends say the police captured three of the men but later released them. Police called to the scene at the time could not be reached for comment Sunday.

On March 10, three men who the Grand Prix regulars say were affiliated with the previous group appeared and were bent on retaliation for the previous night’s call to police. The regulars said there were several fights, some of them quite violent.

‘They Were Dusted’

“They were dusted,” said one of the Grand Prix regulars, echoing others’ belief that the men were using angel dust, or phencyclidine, a highly toxic psychoactive drug that is often connected with otherwise unexplained violence.

On the second night, one of the men smashed his head through a plate-glass window at the Grand Prix for no apparent reason, several of the young regulars said.

Mike Altoonian was not there at the time of the fights. But Friday night he was driving two of those who were--including the 20-year-old who had called police after the car mirror was smashed. One of the passengers said the young man who shot Altoonian had been at the Grand Prix during the trouble the previous weekend.

Before the shooting, Altoonian spent part of the evening with his friends at the Grand Prix. The group left to go to a nearby hamburger stand. It was about 12:15 a.m. Saturday when three men in a brown Toyota pickup truck pulled alongside Altoonian’s Toyota pickup as Altoonian and his four companions drove west on Roscoe Boulevard near Vanalden Avenue.

‘What’s the Problem?’

According to a witness, Altoonian asked, “What’s the problem?” One of the passengers in the other truck responded, “You’re the problem,” before pulling out a gun and shooting Altoonian in the head, the witness said.

“They followed my son’s truck and they were after the other guys,” Altoonian’s mother said Sunday. “It was an unfortunate turn of fate or destiny that he just happened to be driving these friends home. He got his head in the way.”

She said that the Grand Prix “is really a very nice place--he always went there and had a good time.”

Police had no suspects Sunday.