Police Still Seeking Gun Used in Fatal Shooting at Intersection

Police are continuing to search for a pistol-grip shotgun believed to have been used to kill a young man in the middle of a busy intersection last week.

Steven Kiley Escalera, 19, of Anaheim, was shot once in the head during an argument with a motorist on Dec. 13. Acting on an anonymous phone tip, police arrested Ronald Lamar Chase, 30, on Sunday.

The caller told police that Chase “kept a pistol-grip shotgun” in his car, according to police reports filed in West Orange County Municipal Court in Westminster.

Although Chase is registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles as a Costa Mesa resident, police said he was living out of his car in Fountain Valley. Investigators have not located a weapon.

Chase, who is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, is due to be arraigned on a murder charge Dec. 30.

Court records show that Escalera and a friend, Ralph Lewis Clark, 18, were in a pickup truck on their way to lunch when a stranger in a car behind them honked his horn and made an obscene gesture. The man then followed them for about two blocks before pulling alongside their truck at a traffic light at Beach Boulevard and MacDonald Street, police said.

Escalera, who was sitting on the passenger side, reportedly argued with the man and shouted, “Who are you flipping off?” Next, Clark and Escalera challenged the man to pull his car over to a parking lot off on the side of the road, court records state.

Witnesses said the motorist pulled out a pistol-grip shotgun. Clark told investigators ducked down and warned Escalera about the gun. But as Escalera leaned back to get out of the way, police said, he was shot in the head.