Passenger in ‘Slow’ Car Fatally Shot in N. Hollywood by Man in Passing Auto

A Sun Valley man returning home from a batting practice cage was fatally shot by a motorist who thought that the victim’s friend was driving too slowly, police said Thursday.

Kurt Runge, 23, was shot several times in the upper chest shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday on Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood, Los Angeles Police Detective Mike Coffey said. Police by late Thursday had made no arrests in the case.

Runge and his friend, a 23-year-old Sun Valley man whose name was not disclosed, had left the Castle Batting Park in Sherman Oaks and were traveling east on Burbank Boulevard in the friend’s Chrysler Laser, Coffey said.

A white Chevrolet Caprice began tailgating them at Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Coffey said. The Caprice pulled to the right side of the Laser, and one of two men inside shouted, “ ‘You’re driving too slow,’ or something to that effect,” the detective said.

The friend later told police that he was driving at or near the speed limit of 35 m.p.h., Coffey said. Three to five shots were fired toward the half-open side window as the two cars passed Radford Avenue, he said. The early 1980s-model Caprice continued east and disappeared from sight.

“Runge leaned forward, and the driver, realizing his friend had been shot . . . became so emotionally involved that he got disoriented as far as where the nearest hospital was,” Coffey said.

After driving about a mile, the friend called for an ambulance from a pay telephone at a 7-Eleven store.

Runge was pronounced dead more than two hours later at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The friend was not hurt.

Detectives were seeking to interview the driver of a light-colored van that Runge’s friend said was traveling in front of him at the time, Coffey said.

The incident was reminiscent of a spate of more than 100 cases of roadway violence statewide last summer, about 30 of them in Southern California. Five people were killed and 11 were wounded in those incidents.

Runge worked with his father, Art, as an apprentice sheet metal and air-conditioning installer, the father said. He had been attending trade school two days a week, Art Runge, 57, said.