San Diego

A San Carlos man who was found insane for offenses surrounding a shooting that eventually led to the temporary closure of Interstate 8 was committed Wednesday to a mental hospital for six years.

John Paul Killian, 21, is still insane and still a danger, and should be confined at Patton State Hospital, San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert May ruled.

Killian was ruled to be insane by a jury Feb. 24 for firing a gun at a motorist’s car in La Mesa and exhibiting a weapon to SWAT officers at San Diego State University on Sept. 12. However, the jury ruled in a split verdict that Killian was sane when he falsely imprisoned the sister of his former girlfriend and committed a hit and run the same day.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Al Barret said prison officials at Patton may eventually determine that Killian has regained his sanity and remand him back to San Diego for sentencing on the counts in which he was found sane.

The jury convicted Killian of burglary, false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, hit-and-run driving, and brandishing a firearm in the guilt phase of his trial, which preceded the sanity trial.

Killian fired a shot while inside his former girlfriend’s house in San Carlos in an attempt to get her sister to call her in Boston.

He later rammed another car, fired a shot at the car, and eventually surrendered at SDSU to SWAT officers after a two-hour stand-off in which he begged them to shoot him.