Man Kidnaped in Mistaken Identity Case Flees Attackers : Tarzana: He kicks out a van window and is shot three times while escaping. His abductors were looking for someone he apparently didn’t know.

In what police described Wednesday as a harrowing ordeal, a Tarzana electrician was kidnaped, robbed, shot and left seriously injured by four attackers who apparently mistook him for someone else.

Dale Hoffer, 37, was able to escape from his four kidnapers after kicking out a window and jumping from a moving van. He was in serious but stable condition, with a bullet lodged near his spine, at Northridge Hospital Medical Center after the Tuesday night incident.

Los Angeles Police Detective Rick Swanston said the kidnapers had repeatedly demanded that Hoffer tell them the location of another man--a man Hoffer said he did not know.

“Our investigation at this point shows him as Joe Citizen, just an electrician who doesn’t know anything about this,” Swanston said of Hoffer. “He was a John Q. Citizen at the wrong place at the wrong time. These four guys apparently went to the wrong place.”

No arrests were made, and there were few clues to the identities of the attackers, police said.

“The bottom line is we don’t have a lot to go on,” Swanston said.

The incident began about 11:30 p.m. when Hoffer, who is unmarried, pulled his pickup truck into the driveway of the house where he lives in the 5500 block of Tampa Avenue, police said. He was returning from a friend’s home.

“He was walking back down the driveway to close the gate, and these four guys come up with guns and lay him down on the lawn,” Swanston said. “They take his wallet and watch, tie his hands behind the back.”

Using only a first name--which police declined to disclose--the four gunmen asked Hoffer for the location of another man. Swanston said that, when Hoffer said he didn’t know anyone by the name they used, they forced him into a van parked in the street.

While driving away, the gunmen continued to press Hoffer for the unknown man’s whereabouts.

“They tell him if he doesn’t tell them he is going to be killed,” Swanston said. “He tells them again that he doesn’t have any idea who they are talking about.”

Swanston said Hoffer was able to free his hands and quickly kicked out a rear window and jumped from the van while the kidnapers fired at him. He was struck by at least three bullets, in both arms and the back, during the escape on Oxnard Street near Calvin Avenue. The blue van did not stop, and residents in the area called police after hearing the shots.

Police on Wednesday said they were handling the investigation as a wrong-identity case, making attempts to trace the suspects exceedingly difficult.