Boy Arrested After Paint Pellet Is Fired : Shooting: An off-duty police officer’s car window is struck on the Antelope Valley Freeway. There have been similar attacks recently.

An Acton youth was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly shot an air gun at an off-duty police officer’s car on a freeway, striking the passenger-side window with a pellet that exploded into a burst of purple paint.

The 15-year-old boy shot at Los Angeles Police Sgt. Sean Kane about 1 p.m. as he and two companions drove south on the Antelope Valley Freeway near Agua Dulce Canyon Road, California Highway Patrol Officer Phil Jernigan said.

As the car in which he was riding pulled alongside Kane’s, the teen-ager leaned across the driver’s side and fired a paint pellet from an air gun like those used in combat games, Jernigan said. The boy, who was riding with two other youths, later was arrested by CHP officers.

“They had no idea that it was an officer they were shooting at,” he said.

The youths sped away, and Kane chased them. He dialed 911 on his car phone for help and followed the car off the freeway and onto Shadow Pines Boulevard in Canyon Country.

CHP officers found Kane and the youths on the roadside. It was not immediately clear how Kane had persuaded the three to pull over.

Officers arrested one, who will probably be booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Jernigan said. His two 16-year-old companions, also from Acton, were released.

In a similar incident at about the same time in Santa Clarita, a group of young men apparently pointed an air gun at people in a trailer park, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said. The gun was not fired. Authorities stopped the youths but did not arrest them.

Tuesday’s incidents followed a series of similar attacks in the western San Fernando Valley.

On Feb. 12, a woman waiting for a bus in Woodland Hills was struck in the eye by a pellet fired from a group of youths driving by. The woman, Irma Aparicio of Canoga Park, was hospitalized but did not lose the eye as was originally feared, Los Angeles police said Tuesday.