LOCAL : Chatsworth Motorist Shot After Reported Refusal to Buy Drugs

A Chatsworth motorist was shot and critically wounded this morning after he reportedly refused to buy drugs from two men who confronted him at an intersection in Sepulveda, Los Angeles police said.

Sean Danford, 23, was being treated at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills for chest and arm wounds, police said.

Police discovered that Danford had been shot when they arrived at the scene of a 3:30 a.m. accident on Nordhoff Street below the San Diego Freeway overpass, Lt. Harvie Eubank said. Danford’s car had crashed into a semitrailer truck that had been turning off the freeway. The truck driver was not injured.

Danford told investigators that he had been shot four blocks away at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and Columbus Avenue, an area known by police for a high level of street cocaine dealing, Eubank said. The victim told police that he had been driving through the area while on the way from his former apartment in Sepulveda to his new home in Chatsworth.

When he pulled up to a stop sign at Nordhoff and Columbus, two men approached his car and asked if he wanted to buy drugs, Eubank said Danford told investigators. When Danford said no, one of the men pulled out a gun. Danford said he was shot as he tried to speed away, Eubank said.

The shooting is still under investigation and no arrests have been made, police said.