Leans on Car Horn Outside Police Station : Man, Shot 5 Times, Drives to Get Help

A Mission Hills man was shot at least five times in a Pacoima parking lot late Tuesday but was able to drive to a police station to get help.

Police said Clarence Johnson, 34, leaned on the horn of his car until an officer came out of the Foothill Division station in Pacoima and got him to a hospital.

Detectives said they were puzzled by the man’s vague account of what happened.

“It’s not uncommon for gunshot or knife victims to drive themselves to the station, so an officer on the desk hearing the horn would go investigate,” Lt. Bernard Conine said. “It happens about three or four times a year.”

Johnson was taken by ambulance to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, where he was in serious but stable condition Wednesday.

Variety of Wounds

Police estimated that Johnson had been shot five times. But a hospital spokeswoman said he had more wounds, including punctures made by exiting bullet fragments.

He appeared to have been shot “somewhere between five and 10 times,” she said. “It’s going to take many X-rays to tell.”

Johnson told police he was shot in the parking lot of a supermarket on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima, Conine said, “but his account is kind of vague and doesn’t seem to be the whole story.”

Conine said that Johnson gave police the name of a suspect, whom detectives are seeking, but that Johnson “seems very hesitant to give us details and he doesn’t want to prosecute.”