Gunfire Punctuates End of Chase Into Newport, Wounding Driver : Violence: Stolen motor home halted at Wedge after wild flight that began in Diamond Bar.

A freeway chase that caused at least six accidents ended at a popular surfing beach, when at least six deputies opened fire at the driver of a reportedly stolen motor home.

The unidentified man was hospitalized for gunshot wounds and dog-bite injuries sustained as Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies tried to arrest him about 6 a.m. at the Wedge, Sgt. Robert Olmsted said.

The deputies fired into the driver’s window of the 1977 Southwind. One bullet left a hole in a glass door on the second-floor balcony of a home at the end of Channel Road, which dead-ends into the Wedge, a popular surfing spot. The bullet ricocheted off the door.

The residents were asleep in another room and later refused to talk about the incident.

Another resident, who declined to give his name, said, “We heard a lot of gunshots and that’s about it. There were two shotgun shots and maybe two pistols.” He estimated that he heard about 20 gunshots. “It sounded like a quick war,” he said.

Margie Baker, who lives on Channel Road, said: “I got up real quick. I’d never heard such a noise . . . and at the same time I had two helicopters overhead. They were flashing all those lights from the helicopter” onto the street below as police tried to force the suspect out of the car.

Neighbors by the Wedge who gathered at the scene outside police lines wondered why the suspect had driven into a dead end.

“He must not have been familiar with the peninsula or he wouldn’t have gone in there,” resident Elaine Hoff said. “There’s no way out.”

The chase began when a burglar alarm sounded at about 4:45 a.m. in a storage area for motor homes at Lycoming Street and Brea Canyon Road in Diamond Bar, Olmsted said. Arriving deputies saw a motor home go through the main gates and chased it onto the southbound Orange Freeway.

It continued to the eastbound Garden Grove Freeway and switched to southbound Costa Mesa Freeway. The driver stayed on the freeway as it became Newport Boulevard, which turns finally into the dead-end Channel Road.

During the chase, the motor home reached 80 m.p.h. and crashed into two vehicles, which in turn caused six separate collisions but no injuries, authorities said.

The driver “rammed and sideswiped cars to get them to lose control and hit (the deputies’) cars,” Olmsted said.

By the time the suspect hit the end of Channel Road, he also had attracted officers from the police departments of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

He then drove to the sidewalk leading to the beach and onto the sand, officials said.

“We thought it would bog down in the sand and would have to stop,” Olmsted said, “but he was able to accelerate it and turned it around back on the sidewalk.”

The motor home sideswiped a Costa Mesa police car on the passenger side and crashed into two Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department cars.

After being hit by the motor home, deputies in those cars tried to get out of the way by diving onto the grass near the water, but the driver continued to gun the motor home’s engine, Olmsted said. Other sheriff’s deputies then fired at the driver to stop him, he added.

The suspect then barricaded himself inside the motor home for 20 minutes, as authorities threw two firecrackers inside and finally sent a police dog from the Huntington Beach Police Department into the driver’s window, Olmsted said.

The dog bit the man four times on the leg and arm before he was taken into custody, he said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating the chase and the shooting. Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes would not release the suspect’s name or condition.

Some neighbors puzzled over what the suspect had expected to do with the old motor home.

“If you’re going to steal a motor home to make money, why not take a new one?” Barbara Clarke asked. “Unless there was something in there, like drugs. That’s what you think of first these days.”