Assembly Panel Quickly Advances Bills to Curb Highway Shootings : State’s Roadway Violence Claims Fifth Fatality

California’s series of roadway shootings claimed another fatality late Sunday, bringing to five the number of people killed in traffic-related incidents since mid-June.

On Monday, a series of bills aimed at combatting roadway violence--including one that would add 150 California Highway Patrolmen--breezed through an Assembly committee.

Meanwhile, a 31-year-old Canyon Country man accused of firing the first shots in the summer rash of Southern California freeway gunfire failed to appear at his arraignment Monday in San Fernando Superior Court. A warrant was issued for Ramon San-Miguel Santos, who is charged with attempted murder, assault with a firearm and shooting at an occupied vehicle in a June 18 incident on the Antelope Valley Freeway in Newhall.

The death of Debbie Ann Scott, 26, of Pasadena Sunday night came six days after she was shot in the head while riding through South Los Angeles in a pickup truck. Scott, a mother of three, never regained consciousness and had been on life-support systems in critical condition at Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center.

There have been no arrests in the shooting.

Her death capped a week of continuing violence on the state’s roadways. There have been more than 100 reported incidents statewide, including five deaths and 11 injuries, since June 18, when Santos allegedly fired at a motorcyclist.

Gov. George Deukmejian’s plan to immediately hire new Highway Patrol officers won fast-track approval in the Assembly Public Safety Committee Monday. The proposal, announced Saturday by the governor, was hastily added to another bill at the recommendation of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and given approval, 4 to 0, by the panel.

The committee also approved controversial legislation that would make it a felony punishable by a prison term of up to three years for carrying a concealed firearm in the driver’s compartment of a motor vehicle.

Additionally, the committee approved legislation that would send an offender to prison for five years for “maliciously and willfully” firing a gun at an occupied vehicle and would appropriate $950,000 to local law enforcement authorities in Los Angeles County to beef up efforts to catch freeway shooters.

In his weekly radio address, Deukmejian deplored the roadway violence, particularly on Southern California freeways, and called for legislation to hire additional patrol officers for duty on the highways.

The proposal won support Monday when Speaker Brown paid a visit to the committee, conferred with chairman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), some Democratic members and then left.

Freshman Assemblyman Paul Zeltner (R-Lakeside), who was carrying a bill to crack down harder on freeway shooters with tougher criminal penalties, abruptly struck the contents of his bill and announced that he wanted to rewrite it to incorporate Deukmejian’s proposal. The committee agreed and sent it to the Ways and Means Committee for further consideration.

‘Could Not Refuse’

Zeltner later noted to reporters that his bill probably would not have received committee approval if Brown opposed it. He said Brown, handing him “an offer I could not refuse,” sent word that Zeltner could either lose his bill altogether or strike its contents and amend the governor’s proposal into it.

“I’ve been around here long enough to know that half a loaf is better than none,” he said.

“You go for whatever is next-best and next-best is to put more cops on the street,” the former sheriff’s deputy said. He said that he had not spoken to Deukmejian or the governor’s assistants about carrying the CHP hiring bill.

A bill by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), which advanced to the Ways and Means Committee on a 5-0 vote, would make it punishable by a prison term of 16 months or two or three years to carry a concealed weapon in the driver’s compartment. In a case where a locked vehicle trunk is not available, the weapon would have to be transported in a locked container.

Result of ‘Irrationality’

Margolin insisted that freeway shootings, which have occurred chiefly in Southern California, resulted from “impulse, anger and irrationality.” He argued that drivers would not casually carry a gun in a vehicle if they knew they faced a prison term for doing so.

“We have to take action to get guns out of the cars,” he said. “Proposals that say ‘Let’s increase the punishment after the shots are fired’ miss the mark.”

However, Dave Marshall of the National Rifle Assn., whose opposition has helped kill gun control bills in the past, charged that the bill would “effectively disarm” law-abiding citizens of a method of self defense.

But Margolin countered that highway shootings “are not of self defense but of offense. We don’t have examples of people trying to defend themselves in their cars.”

The $950,000 bill providing state aid for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department was carried by Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and was approved 7 to 0.

Among other things, the money would be spent to acquire and implement a computerized system throughout the county to track information on roadway shootings, provide for additional helicopter surveillance and assign 10 extra officers a day to motorcycle duty.

Times Staff Writer Tracey Kaplan contributed to this article.