Man Shot, 6 Teen-Agers Arrested in Studio City Traffic Altercation

Six teen-agers were arrested after a motorist who was traveling with his 4-year-old son was shot in the abdomen after a traffic dispute near a Studio City intersection Saturday night, police said.

The victim was being treated at the Medical Center of North Hollywood’s emergency room, where officials declined to disclose his identity or condition.

Police said the incident occurred at 7:30 p.m. near the normally busy intersection of Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards.

It was the 22nd traffic-related shooting incident reported by Southern California law enforcement officials since a wave of such events began in mid-June.

Lt. John McCrillis declined to describe the nature of the dispute but said it began after the victim’s car and a Jeep filled with teen-agers stopped at a stoplight. The man and the teen-agers got out of their cars, a fight ensued and one of the teen-agers pulled out a gun and shot the victim at least once. The teen-agers then fled in their vehicle.

The victim then got in his car and drove to the hospital.

Witnesses flagged down a police officer and within 30 minutes a patrol sergeant, aided by a police helicopter, spotted the Jeep at a nearby intersection and arrested the occupants.

McCrillis said police do not know whether the young man who fired the gun was among those arrested. They continued to search for other suspects Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday in the Riverside County city of Moreno Valley, sheriff’s deputies arrested two men on suspicion of firing a handgun at a tractor-trailer rig on California 60 after a teen-age eyewitness provided authorities with a graphic description about how the driver of the suspect car and his passenger were laughing when the gun was fired.

The driver of the truck, who was not identified by deputies, was not injured. It was not clear how many shots were fired, whether any of them hit the truck or whether a traffic confrontation preceded the shooting.

An hour and 15 minutes after the shooting, deputies arrested Richard Buttles, 31, of Rubidoux, and Richard McCauley, 29, of Bloomington, Calif. They were booked on charges of shooting into an occupied vehicle and committing a felony while possessing a deadly weapon.

Deputies said they found two loaded semi-automatic pistols in the front seat.

McCauley was also booked on a drug charge after 53 grams of methamphetamine were found in his possession, authorities said.

The two men were held in Riverside County Jail in lieu of $15,000 bail.

The shooting took place as the truck and the suspects’ car were traveling east on California 60 at the Interstate 15 interchange.

Sheriff’s Sgt. John Horton said the truck driver did not stop after the shooting and was apparently unaware he was shot at.

But a teen-age girl, traveling in another car, saw the incident and drove to the Moreno Valley police station, where she gave authorities a description of the suspects that was “right down to their tattoos,” Horton said. “A tremendous description.”

An all-points bulletin was issued, and other deputies spotted the car traveling on a Moreno Valley street and arrested the men after they drove onto a piece of property in an attempt to hide.

An hour later, in incidents that were not related, two Los Angeles County motorists telephoned sheriff’s substations to report that drivers had brandished weapons at them.

The incidents happened within 10 minutes and a few miles of each other.

First, Michael Chavez, 27, told authorities that he was driving with his family on the Orange Freeway near the Pomona Freeway interchange in Diamond Bar when an old van swerved in front of him. Deputies said Chavez told them that a passenger in the van took out a dark object, which Chavez believed was a handgun, and waved it at him.

Then on the Pomona Freeway near the Fairway Drive off-ramp in the City of Industry, Jacqueline Smith, 27, was passed by a car that she described as being “lowered.” As the car passed her on her left, a male passenger wearing a red headband displayed a handgun, Smith told authorities.