Driver Says Window Shot Out on I-5 in Irvine; Man Questioned, Released

Irvine police questioned an Anaheim man in the suspected shooting of a truck on the Santa Ana Freeway early Thursday, but later released him pending test results when they could not find a weapon to link him with the incident.

In an unrelated case of violence on the same freeway, Santa Ana police have been unable to determine whether a Sacramento family was fired on or whether a rock was thrown at their car Wednesday night.

Irvine Police Sgt. Scott Cade refused to identify the suspect in the Thursday shooting, who was released while police await the results of forensic tests. Cade said the tests were conducted to determine whether the unidentified driver had fired a weapon shortly before he was detained on the freeway near San Clemente.

The driver of the tractor-trailer rig--identified as Robert Hayes, 46, of Torrance--told police he was driving southbound on Interstate 5 near Alton Parkway about 1:20 a.m., when a dark-colored Toyota pickup truck passed him on the right, Cade said. Hayes said that he saw two flashes from the muzzle of a gun on the driver’s side of the Toyota, and that his front windshield shattered within seconds.

Unhurt but shaken, Hayes drove to a Mission Viejo truck stop to call the California Highway Patrol and inspect damage to his rig. Police investigators later also found a dent on the front of the tractor but don’t know whether a gunshot caused it, Irvine Police Sgt. Jeff Kermode said.

After Hayes reported the incident, the CHP issued a countywide bulletin for a dark blue Toyota pickup truck with a broken left-rear brake light. San Clemente police stopped a truck matching that description about 2:20 a.m. on I-5 near Avenida Califia, Kermode said.

“After they heard the broadcast, they pulled over on the side of the road and waited for the truck to come by,” he said.

The driver, described only as a man about 40 years old, was arrested without incident.

No weapon was found, but residue tests were taken to determine whether the suspect may have fired a handgun and whether it was a bullet that shattered the truck’s window, Cade said. Test results were expected in about three weeks.

In the Wednesday night incident, Santa Ana police suspect that a rock, not a bullet, shattered the rear window of a family’s station wagon as it traveled southbound on I-5.

John Ramey, 37, of Sacramento, told police that he and seven family members were returning from Disneyland about 6:40 p.m. when a projectile smashed the window. Ramey said he immediately pulled to the side of the freeway near Broadway and phoned police.

CHP officials initially reported that a side windshield of the station wagon was broken by a pellet, probably in a sniper attack. But Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Chavez disagreed:

“Snipers do not use pellet guns. We don’t feel it was an attack. I feel it was a rock.”