Sylmar Man Arraigned in Freeway Shooting

An unemployed Sylmar carpenter who was arrested on suspicion of shooting at a car on the Golden State Freeway after a tailgating incident was charged Thursday with two counts of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon and one count of shooting at an inhabited vehicle.

Lewis L. Meeks, 32, who pleaded not guilty to the charges in San Fernando Municipal Court, could be sentenced to life in prison without parole if he is convicted of attempted murder in the first degree.

In announcing the charges before the arraignment, Dist. Atty. Ira K. Reiner said he wanted to serve notice that “this sort of cowboy mentality doesn’t belong anywhere. God knows, it doesn’t belong on the freeway.”

In five shooting incidents on Los Angeles County freeways since June 18, one man was killed and two people were wounded.

“This can’t be allowed to become a trend,” Reiner said. “Before anybody gets the idea that this is akin to getting into a barroom fight, where you do your 30 days in jail, we’re going to stamp it out.”

Meeks’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Gerald Richardson, said Meeks does not own any guns and could not have shot at a car early Tuesday on the northbound Hollywood Freeway near the junction with the Golden State Freeway in Sun Valley.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael E. Knight said police found a .25-caliber pistol in Meeks’ garage.

Meeks acknowledged to police that he was chased at speeds of up to 100 m.p.h. by a couple in a black Nissan 280ZX after a dispute over tailgating, but denied that he shot at the car from his pickup truck, Knight said.

According to police, Carol Ann Fayne, 45, and a friend, Mike Smith, 36, both of Northridge, were returning from a movie at Universal City shortly after midnight when the pickup approached and began tailgating their car on the Hollywood Freeway south of Roscoe Boulevard. The car, with Fayne at the wheel, was in the lane to the right of the fast lane as the pickup began flashing its headlights, then pulled alongside the car on the right, police said.

As the two vehicles were traveling side by side, Fayne said, Smith traded obscenities with the pickup driver, who fired three shots as the vehicles began traveling north on the Golden State Freeway. Police later found a bullet hole in the right rear fender of Fayne’s sports car.

Fayne chased the pickup through the San Fernando Valley to Sylmar and reported the license number to police, who used it to trace and arrest Meeks.

Fayne’s husband, Phil, a 46-year-old hairdresser who was in court for Meeks’ arraignment, said he has known his wife to act courageously when she is angry. “She’d do it again,” he said.

Meeks was ordered by Commissioner Stephen A. Leventhal to appear for a preliminary hearing Aug. 4. Meeks is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at County Jail.