Highway Closed After Man Fires at CHP Car, Flees

Authorities closed a four-mile stretch of Ortega Highway for 14 hours Saturday while they searched unsuccessfully for a man who shot at a California Highway Patrol officer during a car chase.

The shooting occurred shortly after midnight while the unidentified officer was pursuing a speeding motorist about 10 miles east of Interstate 5, said Lt. Jay Mendez of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The officer rounded a corner and saw the pursued car stopped on the shoulder with its lights off, he said.

As the officer slowly drove toward the stopped car, a man emerged from the front of the vehicle and shot at the officer, striking the patrol car. The officer backed away from the gunman, who fired another shot at the retreating car. The man then got back in the car and drove east, Mendez said.

The officer was not injured.

Sheriff’s deputies answered the officer’s call for assistance almost immediately and found the assailant’s car, abandoned, a short distance away, Mendez said.

The highway was closed from La Pata Avenue near San Juan Capistrano to the edge of Cleveland National Forest at the Riverside County line while authorities combed the rugged, brush-filled terrain for the gunman. He was described as about 30 years old, 5-foot-6, with a dark complexion.

The search was aided by helicopters from the Sheriff’s Department and Huntington Beach Police Department, the sheriff’s tactical support team and the sheriff’s reserve bloodhounds.

Authorities abandoned the search about 3 p.m.