“I knew that drivers’ attitudes in L.A....

“I knew that drivers’ attitudes in L.A. had hardened, but this really shook me,” KNX radio reporter Chris Simon said.

Simon was on his way to work at about 3:45 a.m. Tuesday when he came upon an accident that had left a motorist lying in the middle of a lane on the Pomona Freeway near the City of Industry. Simon said he pulled off on the inside shoulder and watched to his horror as a truck passed over the victim--miraculously not hitting him. But at least one car tried the same maneuver and appeared to strike the unidentified man, he added.

“The amazing thing is, traffic had slowed to 5 or 10 m.p.h. and they could see it was a human being,” Simon recalled.

Then, as he tried to redirect traffic and signal for help, “people started honking at me and cursing. It was like they were saying, ‘How dare you slow me down?’ ”

Finally, two truck drivers helped Simon set up flares and call for an ambulance. The injured motorist, who was not identified, was in guarded condition at a San Dimas hospital.

“A lot of people seem to lose their humanity when they slip behind that steel armor,” Simon concluded.

Silver-tongued devils, they weren’t. Instead, police say, the modus operandi of the two young men was to take female companions up on a rolling part of El Sereno known as Elephant Hills, then fire their handguns into the air.

“This is the way they picked up women,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. John Ortega.

Residents in the neighborhood, which borders South Pasadena, weren’t so impressed. They phoned police, who arrested the Revolver Romeos. Two female companions with them were released.

It’s easy to step on someone famous in Los Angeles, what with all the walks of fame honoring movie stars, astronauts, athletes, cowboys, country singers, Latino celebrities and starfish.

There’s also the 4-year-old Rock Walk of Fame, a sidewalk display of musicians’ handprints and signatures (or “X” marks, perhaps) in front of a guitar shop on Sunset Boulevard. The Rock Walk took in its first posthumous members Tuesday. Legendary singers Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and Roy Orbison were cited in plaques placed on a special Wall of Honor.

The next rock inductee may be Elvis Presley. “But we don’t know whether it would be posthumously,” said spokesman Steve Tarson.

Chief of police in a city that includes Hollywood, Daryl F. Gates knows something about grabbing the media’s attention.

In Sacramento to discuss his exploratory candidacy for governor, he appeared before a not-very-attentive group of reporters to repeat his call to outlaw assault rifles. Suddenly, he brandished a tape recorder. What followed, one reporter noted, probably sounded like Manila the night Marcos was driven from power.

It was a furious fusillade of gunfire that had been taped by police atop the Ramparts Division building on New Year’s Eve, he said.

Showing off his expertise, Gates explained, “The BOOM-BOOM-BOOMs are AK-47s or some other semiautomatic. The BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOMs are automatics, which are already against the law.”

When he had finished, Gates demonstrated less expertise with his tape recorder. The machine kept spewing out gunfire sounds as he fumbled to hit the “off” button. Finally, he said, “How do you turn this thing off?” An aide rushed to the rescue at Code 2 speed and neutralized the recorder.

A message from the scene of a fire overheard on the radio frequency used by Los Angeles city firefighters:

“Will you contact the firefighter who’s in quarters and tell him to turn the oven off?”