2 Autos, Bus Fired At as Violence Continues on Southland Streets

Traffic congestion in Southern California sparked three more shooting incidents Friday, raising the number to 20 in the Southland since mid-June.

Two of the attacks, apparently unrelated pellet-gun shootings on the Artesia and San Gabriel River freeways, left the window of one car shattered and the fender of another dented during the morning rush hour. The rear window of a charter bus containing an instructor and four trainees was shattered by gunfire on a Carson street in the afternoon.

Frantic Motorists

No one was injured in any of Friday’s incidents. But fear generated by the rash of violence has flooded the hot line established by the California Highway Patrol with hundreds of calls from frantic motorists with reports of encounters with aggressive drivers cruising the freeways.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook. People are getting paranoid and calling in every suspicious thing they see on the roads,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Stearlene Marshall. “This whole thing is getting blown out of proportion.”

As an extra precaution, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates has advised the department’s 317 motorcycle officers to wear bullet-proof vests to shield them from trigger-happy motorists.

A task force of law enforcement agencies was formed earlier this week to counter the violence. Since mid-June, four people have died and four more have been wounded in the roadway attacks.

The pellet gun attack occurred about 8 a.m. Friday as Mary and Algimantus Gustaitis, both 50, of Long Beach were driving eastbound on the Artesia Freeway near Lakewood Boulevard when a pellet shattered the passenger window on the car, Sheriff’s Deputy Willie Miller said.

Shower of Glass

Mary Gustaitis, who was reading a book while her husband was driving, screamed and leaped next to her husband to escape injury as the window erupted and showered glass inside the car, Miller said.

Gustaitis told deputies she had noticed a man making “unusual hand gestures” in a vehicle next to their car just before the shot. The initial investigation failed to locate a projectile, but Miller said, “It looks like it probably was an air pellet.”

About 45 minutes earlier, a Garden Grove man, Gregory Steinbeck, 30, was driving northbound on the San Gabriel River Freeway in Hawaiian Gardens when a brown AMC Gremlin approached from behind at a fast clip and pulled alongside, Sheriff’s Sgt. Mason Kenny said.

A passenger in the car extended his arm through the window and apparently fired several shots from a blue-steel pellet gun, hitting Steinbeck’s left rear fender, Kenny said. The two assailants sped away.

Then, shortly before 3 p.m., as Betty Steele, 39, was driving a Mark IV Charter Bus Lines bus through Carson, a single round shattered the back window, according to Deputy Van Mosley of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

An instructor and four trainees were aboard the bus, but no passengers. Two men in a Buick Regal were being sought in the shooting, officials said.

In earlier incidents of violence, a 21-year-old motorist was shot at while driving on Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks on Thursday night, Thousand Oaks Police Sgt. Gary Freeman said.

Woodland Hills resident Bill Wolfe was approaching Avenida de Los Arboles Avenue about 11:15 p.m. when he saw what he described as an older model Chevrolet Blazer behind him with its headlights off, Freeman said. As the Blazer passed Wolfe on the right, its lights flashed on and a shot was fired, he said.

The bullet entered Wolfe’s car through the passenger-side window, ricocheted off the steering wheel and lodged in the door on the driver’s side, Freeman said.

“It was a darn close call. That bullet passed within inches of his head as it bounced off the horn,” he said. “We don’t know if anyone else was in the vehicle.”

In a second incident, a Van Nuys driver, Mark Bach, 29, was cornered by two motorcyclists who reportedly were upset that he had committed a traffic violation on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Ted Hanson.

The motorcyclists, Douglas Baker, 26, and Michael Mitchell, 28, demanded that Bach get out of his Volkswagen and “come on, be a man, get out of your car and fight,” Hanson said.

Mitchell started punching Bach from outside the car, and Bach pulled out a jack handle and struck Mitchell on the head, Hanson said. No arrests were made and Mitchell refused hospital treatment, Hanson said.

In an Orange County freeway gun-scare incident that the CHP said “was not funny,” three teen-agers were arrested for allegedly threatening motorists with a plastic cap gun on the San Diego Freeway, the CHP reported Friday.

CHP Officer Ken Daily said the youngsters were arrested in the San Juan Capistrano area Thursday night after earlier pointing “a very real-looking” cap gun at motorists on the freeway in the Irvine area.

The boys were not identified because they are juveniles. Daily said the driver was 17 and from Upland. One passenger was 14, also from Upland, and the other passenger, 15, from Claremont, he said.

A woman motorist alerted the CHP to the teen-agers about 7:45 p.m., Daily said. He said the woman, who was not identified, flagged down a highway patrolman on the freeway and gave a description of the car. Daily said the woman and other witnesses said the teen-agers had been pointing a handgun at other motorists on the freeway near the Culver Drive exit on the San Diego Freeway.

A car matching the description was seen on the freeway in San Juan Capistrano and stopped by CHP officers. Daily said officers arrested the three youths in the car on charges of brandishing--a charge which Daily said includes threatening people with a simulated weapon.

“The officers found a plastic cap gun in the glove box of the car,” Daily said. “I have the gun right here, and I can tell you it looks just like a .38-caliber weapon. It would be very hard for anyone to tell it’s not a real gun.

“I’m just glad someone who was threatened didn’t have a gun in his car; he might have shot to protect himself and killed one of those kids.”

The juveniles were turned over to their parents after being cited on the misdemeanor brandishing charge, Daily said.

In another development, Los Angeles prosecutors on Friday charged Jose Mario Rivera, 28, of Walnut Park with four felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon--a gun and his car. On July 24, he allegedly pointed a pistol at two young women driving on the San Diego Freeway and tried to run them off the road.

Times staff writers Gabe Fuentes in Los Angeles and Steven Churm and Bill Billiter in Orange County contributed to this story.