Motel Guest Gives Up After Burst of Gunfire

A sniper with a .22-caliber rifle was arrested Thursday after firing about 40 shots from his Sherman Oaks motel room, nicking a security guard’s uniform and shattering glass that cut a tenant of an adjacent apartment building, police said.

Robert E. Bise Jr., 41, of Long Beach surrendered about 8 a.m. to police who surrounded the Sierra Lodge motel in the 4700 block of Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Bruno Guarino said.

Bise, who said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” as officers placed him in handcuffs, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held in lieu of $12,000 bail in Los Angeles County Jail.

Fired Toward Courtyard

Bise checked into the motel Wednesday afternoon and began firing the rounds about 7:30 a.m. Thursday from a motel bathroom, Police Lt. Dan Cooke said. Most of the shots were fired in the direction of a courtyard in an adjacent apartment building, riddling walls and windows with bullet holes.

“There were about 30 to 40 spent shells in the bathtub, the sink, all over the place,” Cooke said.

Cut by Shattered Glass

Jack Halfon, 43, a resident of the Rita Apartments next door, was standing in his bathroom shaving when bullets shattered a window, the glass cutting him in the neck and chest. Halfon was treated and released at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Another round grazed the shirt pocket of a security guard in the mall parking lot of the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Cooke said, but the woman was not injured.

Police said they know no motive for the shooting. Investigators said Bise had a partly filled bottle of liquor in his room but did not know if he was intoxicated when the shooting occurred.

Police Detective Craig Rhudy said Bise, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, is a former outpatient at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Long Beach. A hospital spokeswoman declined to comment on the nature of Bise’s treatment.

Traffic on Sepulveda Boulevard was blocked off for several minutes before Bise was taken into custody.