Pasadena Woman, Victim of Latest Roadway Shooting, Fights for Life

A 26-year-old Pasadena woman was fighting for her life late Monday after being shot in the head in the most serious Southern California roadway attack in three weeks.

Debbie Ann Scott was riding in a pickup truck on Avalon Boulevard at 94th Street in Southeast Los Angeles about 11:30 p.m. Sunday when someone in a large, dark car sprayed the vehicle with gunfire, Los Angeles Police Detective Patrick Marshall said.

Scott was in critical condition on a life support system late Monday at Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center, Marshall said. Scott’s 20-year-old sister, Paula Rogers of Pasadena, and an unidentified friend, who was driving, were unhurt, he said.

“We’re damn lucky that we don’t have three dead people,” Marshall said. “A bunch of idiots on the roadways are making driving into a nerve-racking experience. It’s a miracle no one else was hit. There’s no reason for it. It’s just sad.”

The friend had picked up Scott and her sister after their car broke down. As the pickup truck pulled away from a stoplight, the driver of the large car fired several shots, striking Scott, who was seated between her sister and the friend, Marshall said.

Police were looking for the gunman’s car, he said.

Meanwhile, in Lancaster on Monday, a school bus carrying two children home was shot at from a passing car, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Tom Pigott said.

The bus was traveling westbound on Avenue K near 30th Street about 1:50 p.m. when a green Oldsmobile drove by in the other direction and someone inside fired two shots that passed over the bus’s hood, Pigott said.

The bus driver said the two children aboard, aged 6 and 7, did not know that shots were fired, Pigott said. Police have no suspects, he said.

There have been at least 40 roadway shootings in Southern California since mid-June, killing three people and injuring eight. The California Highway Patrol reported 26 roadway shootings in Los Angeles County since June 18.

In Sacramento, Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) announced Monday that the Committee on Public Safety would hold hearings today on the roadway shootings. His announcement came as members of the Guardian Angels, a citizen crime-fighting group, began a 24-hour demonstration at the Capitol in support of a mandatory 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of shooting from a moving vehicle.