Shoot-Out on Freeway Kills 1 in Rush Hour

As passing commuters watched in horror, one man was shot to death and another wounded when men in two vehicles exchanged gunfire along the Santa Ana Freeway during the morning rush hour today, authorities said.

As commuters watched, the two groups fired at least 10 times after they had pulled their vehicles onto the shoulder of the roadway.

The incident occurred about 8:40 a.m. on the shoulder of the northbound freeway just south of the Crescent Avenue exit, where at least three men in a beige van exchanged fire with two men in a yellow Toyota pickup truck, Anaheim Police Lt. Marc Hedgpeth said.

Hedgpeth said the shooting erupted after occupants of the vehicles motioned at each other to pull over.

“There was a brief discussion between the parties and then shots were fired,” Hedgpeth said.

Police closed one lane of the freeway briefly while investigating.

One unidentified man, apparently a passenger in the van, was dead on arrival at Martin Luther Hospital Medical Center in Anaheim. An injured suspect from the pickup truck was in fair condition at UCI Medical Center, authorities said.

“He’s awake and alert. He’s expected to live,” said Lt. John Cross.

Only one witness has stepped forward, despite the fact the shoot-out took place in full view of rush hour traffic, Cross said. While police have not established a motive for the shooting, Cross said there is an indication the participants may have known each other.

“This was not a classic, random freeway shooting,” Cross said.

At a service station on Euclid Avenue in Anaheim, where the injured man was driven in his friend’s pickup truck for help, mechanic Ricardo Arana, 23, said the driver of the truck told him in Spanish that the fight was over money.

“He said it was only a problem with money, nothing else,” Arana said in Spanish. “And he said that on the freeway there was a problem.”