2 Youths Wounded in Freeway Shooting

Two teen-age boys were wounded while driving on the Ventura Freeway in Van Nuys early Saturday in the third freeway shooting to occur in the Southland last week, authorities said.

The shootings were reminiscent of a rash of more than 50 such incidents on Southern California roads in the summer of 1987 in which five people died and 16 were wounded. Authorities said they hoped the three shootings last week would not touch off another spate of roadway violence. “I don’t want to think this is a resurgence,” said Lt. Larry Todd of the Pomona Police Department, which is investigating one of the shootings. “I don’t think it is because the worst happened last summer when the freeways were really packed.”

In the Van Nuys incident, two 17-year-old boys whose identities were not disclosed were driving west on the Ventura Freeway near the Woodman Avenue off-ramp shortly after midnight when a car pulled up alongside them, said Sgt. Ed Brayton of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys division.

An Asian man, believed to be about 17 or 18 years old, pulled a gun and shot the teen-agers for no apparent reason, Brayton said.

The victims drove to a fast-food restaurant on Woodman Avenue, where they called police, Brayton said. They were treated at an undisclosed hospital and were listed in stable condition, he said.

On Wednesday, an off-duty Los Angeles police officer and his 3-year-old son were shot in one of two freeway shootings that occurred in Pomona that night.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Frank Anguiano, 24, and his son were wounded while driving west on the Pomona Freeway in the City of Industry by gunmen in a light-blue Toyota hatchback carrying three men, Todd said.

Anguiano and his son were each shot in the right arm. The boy was admitted to White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights but has since been released, Todd said.

About two hours after the Anguianos were shot, Gerald Warthen, 36, of Covina was driving on the transition road from the eastbound San Bernardino Freeway to the southbound Corona Freeway in Pomona when a bullet fired by a man in a black Volkswagen with tinted windows grazed the back of his head, Todd said. Warthen was treated at Pomona Valley Hospital and released.

Todd said the gunman had unsuccessfully tried to engage Warthen in a race. The gunman then cut Warthen off and shot him, Todd said.