Vendor Shot at North County Rest Stop : Crime: The suspected gunman is captured in Mission Viejo after being spotted on Interstate 5. The victim is in serious condition.

A 56-year-old catering truck operator was shot and seriously wounded Wednesday at a notorious Interstate 5 rest stop north of Oceanside after telling a would-be customer that he had no motor oil for sale.

Lee Harrell, a resident of Southeast San Diego who had operated the food stand at the popular stopping point for two months, was listed in serious condition late Wednesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Harrell, who was struck by five bullets, underwent 3 1/2 hours of surgery to remove bullets from his chest, stomach, hip and legs.

The alleged gunman, Eric Hazelgrove, 30, of San Diego, was captured along with two female companions after a high-speed chase that ended in an Orange County shopping center.

Hazelgrove was on his way from San Diego to Los Angeles International Airport when he and his passengers, Jennie Wagner, 29, and her cousin, Kerry Wagner, 21, stopped at the Aliso Creek rest area about 6:30 a.m., a spokeswoman for the San Diego Sheriff’s Department said.

According to witnesses, Hazelgrove walked up to Harrell’s catering truck and asked if he could purchase some motor oil. When Harrell told him that he did not sell oil, Hazelgrove walked back to his truck, said John Mobley, 22, the operator of a catering truck next to Harrell’s.

Moments later, after chatting with Kerry Wagner, Hazelgrove walked back toward the catering truck, stopped about 20 yards away, pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and began firing, Mobley said.

“I was watching him, and he didn’t even say a word,” Mobley said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

One bullet hit Mobley’s truck, narrowly missing him. “I thought I was shot too,” he said. After Hazelgrove emptied his handgun, he walked casually back to his truck, jumped in and drove away, Mobley said.

A Marine Corps military policemen stationed at the rest stop radioed to police in San Clemente, about 15 miles north of where the shooting occurred, to be on the lookout for the maroon pickup truck driven by the gunman.

San Clemente police and Orange County sheriff’s deputies spotted the truck on I-5 and chased it to a shopping center in Mission Viejo, where the two women jumped out of the vehicle and tried to escape, authorities said.

All three suspects were captured and taken to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department station in Encinitas.

Hazelgrove was booked at County Jail in Vista on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to Detective Floyd Seese of the Sheriff’s Department. The two women with Hazelgrove were questioned and released.

“It was a bizarre situation,” Seese said, in that there was no apparent motive for the shooting, although Hazelgrove told deputies that he “hated black people.” Harrell is black.

Alice Lee Harrell, the 14-year-old daughter of the victim, said that her father was employed by an Oceanside catering truck company and had been working at the rest stop about two months. He enjoyed the job, she said.

“He told my mother that nothing like this had ever happened to him,” she said.

The rest stop, situated in the northbound lanes of I-5 on the grounds of Camp Pendleton, has a history of violent incidents, including assaults and robberies, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said.

Drug dealing and alien smuggling are among the illegal pursuits that go on at the rest stop, which is visited by thousands of motorists each day, she said.