Object Smashes Windshield, Kills Van Driver

A 35-year-old motorist was killed Tuesday afternoon when the windshield of his van was mysteriously smashed as he drove south on the Harbor Freeway near downtown Los Angeles, authorities said.

Paramedics pronounced the driver dead at the scene, just south of Adams Boulevard, where his brown van came to rest against the freeway’s center divider. There was a large hole on the driver’s side of the vehicle’s windshield. The van’s back window also was broken.

Identity of the victim, described as an Asian man who lives in Los Angeles, was not immediately disclosed.

Police initially were investigating the incident as a homicide, possibly caused by a brick or piece of concrete dropped from an overpass.

But detectives were, frankly, puzzled.

“All we know is that some object came through the windshield, struck him and killed him,” Lt. Bruce Hagerty said. “At this point it is a big unknown.”

Glass found on the freeway just under the 23rd Street overpass raised the possibility that whatever happened began at that point, creating early speculation that a brick or chunk of concrete had been hurled from the overpass.

The California Highway Patrol closed the two southbound lanes to motorists after the incident and traffic was backed up for miles throughout the afternoon.

Northbound drivers also moved slowly past the scene.

From the overpass above the freeway, 50 to 75 people stared down at the cars and the investigating officers.

Incidents of motorists being injured by objects thrown from freeway overpasses are “very, very rare,” according to CHP spokesman Dan Bower. But, he said, his agency receives reports several times a week of people throwing something off the overcrossing.”