Van’s Window Blown Out in Yet Another Road Shooting

A passenger in a car following a van onto a freeway on-ramp in Seal Beach Saturday afternoon leaned out the window with a gun and blasted out the van’s back window but caused no injuries, police said.

Seal Beach Police Officer Greg Young said there were four passengers in an old brown Gremlin following the Volkswagen van at 3:30 p.m. onto the Seal Beach Boulevard on-ramp to the northbound San Diego Freeway (I-405).

He said a passenger leaned out and fired a “long-barrel weapon,” perhaps a rifle or shotgun, just as the van was about to enter the freeway. The driver of the van was identified as Scott Collins, but Young did not know his age or hometown. Three other passengers in the van were not identified.

“The shooting was unprovoked,” Young said. “A car just drove up and someone shot out the back window of the bus.”

According to Young, Collins told investigators that four men, all appearing to be Latino, were in the Gremlin, which had one door painted yellow. He said Collins was unable to get the license number of the car after it passed him on the freeway.

Tried to Follow Attacker

Collins said he tried to follow the car for about two miles before giving up and stopping to call authorities.

It was the second freeway shooting incident in Orange County in the past week, and the sixth in Southern California during the past several weeks.

On July 18, Paul Gary Nussbaum of Rolling Hills Estate was shot in stop-and-go, merging traffic on the Costa Mesa Freeway near the Orange County Fairgrounds. Nussbaum remains in serious condition with a bullet lodged in his neck at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center.

Charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and firing into an inhabited vehicle were filed last Wednesday against Albert Carroll Morgan, 32, a Santa Ana roofer, in connection with the shooting. Morgan was arrested in the fair parking lot shortly after the incident.

Two of the six shootings on freeways this summer have been fatal, including one Friday night in Pomona. Police said that Russell J. Pirrone, 17, was shot to death on Corona Freeway (California 71) by a motorist angered when he was forced to give way to the Pirrone’s car while merging with traffic.

Shooting of a Pomona youth underlines fear on the roads. Part I, Page 1.