Two Injured in Another Road Shooting Incident

Two men suffered minor injuries and a Santa Monica man’s motorcycle helmet was damaged Sunday when gunfire erupted on Pacific Coast Highway in the latest incident of violence involving firearms on Southern California roadways.

Brad Heppner, 27, and Daniel Brooks, also 27, both of Oxnard, told police they were in Heppner’s pickup truck Sunday afternoon, and encountered heavy traffic in the 11000 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. While attempting a lane change, Heppner said, he was blocked by a foreign-made sports car--possibly a Triumph or a Mercedes-Benz--whose driver edged into southbound lanes ahead of him.

Words were exchanged, he said, and when traffic came to a standstill the driver of the sports car got out, took a .38- or .45-caliber handgun from the trunk of his car, and fired several shots, one of which broke the windshield of Heppner’s truck.

Santa Monica Police Sgt. Russ Martin said passenger Brooks suffered a powder burn from the proximity of the weapon, while Heppner suffered minor cuts from the broken glass. Neither required hospital treatment, he said.

A third victim, Martin said, was motorcyclist Michael Rushlow, 32, of Santa Monica.

“He didn’t seem to be hurt,” Martin said, “but one of the bullets fired by the gunman went through his safety helmet--which he apparently was holding in his hand at the time.”

He said Rushlow’s woman passenger also was unhurt.

The traffic jam dissolved and the gunman drove away before police arrived, but witnesses described the man as having dark hair, eyes and skin tone, possibly a Middle Easterner, who appeared to be in his mid-30s.

Martin said the incident was one more example of a virtual epidemic of freeway and roadway violence that began in mid-June, with a killing in Santa Fe Springs.

Other Incidents

Since then, he said, two men have been seriously injured in shootings in Alhambra and Costa Mesa; a woman was shaken though unharmed after she chased a truck driver who fired at her car near Sylmar; and three bullets fired from a passing truck barely missed a motorcyclist near Newhall.

On Saturday, a rifleman in a car shot out the rear window of a Volkswagen van on an Orange County freeway on-ramp near Seal Beach in an apparent unprovoked attack. None of the four surfers in the van was injured.

That shooting came less than 24 hours after the most recent fatality. Russell Joseph Pirrone, 17, of Pomona was shot to death Friday night after he drove his Volkswagen onto the Corona Expressway at a slow speed that evidently angered one of four men in a pickup truck behind him, one of whom opened fire with a small-caliber handgun.

Pomona police have issued a composite sketch of a Latino man with a Fu Manchu mustache wanted in the Pirrone slaying, and Police Lt. Larry Todd said the sketch has generated many phone calls, but no concrete leads so far.

Citizen Patrols

The recent spate of freeway shootings has prompted plans by the Guardian Angels to patrol freeways and distribute “defensive driving” literature to motorists.

Sandra Hess, spokeswoman for the voluntary security patrol, said Sunday that Angels will patrol selected freeways and will try to link up with car clubs and Citizens Band radio clubs.

Hess said that members would also begin handing out pamphlets today on the Hollywood Boulevard on-ramp to the southbound Hollywood Freeway. The literature urges drivers to take down license numbers and personal descriptions when motorists behave violently.