Man Shot in Head During Apparent Carjacking Attempt

A 20-year-old man waiting outside an office for a friend was shot twice in the head Thursday afternoon in an apparent carjacking attempt.

The victim, Timothy Schlick of Long Beach, survived the attack, and police arrested a suspect at a local motel about an hour later.

Vanessa Rodriguez, an employee at nearby Little Caesar’s Pizza said she saw Schlick drive his small red car into a parking lot in back of Barker Management Inc. on Thursday afternoon, which she said he had frequently done in the past.

“He usually picked someone up” after work, said Rodriguez, who was working behind the counter at the time of the shooting.

“I heard a ruckus, and I heard people arguing,” she said.

Police Sgt. Kirt Robertson said Schlick was sitting in his car in the 1700 block of West Ball Road at 4:41 p.m. waiting for a friend to get off work when a man “approached the car and shot Schlick in the head twice with a handgun.” The attacker then ran.

Anaheim Police Lt. John Haradon said he did not know if Schlick had resisted giving up his car or exactly what led to the shooting.

Witnesses helped lead police to a motel on Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana, where officers arrested 20-year-old Harold E. Harris of Santa Ana. He was being held at the Anaheim Jail on suspicion of attempted murder. Bail was set at $250,000.

Schlick was in serious condition at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Rodriguez said that after overhearing the argument, she saw two men walk away from Schlick’s car. Robertson said he had no information about a possible second suspect.

As carjacking has gained increased notoriety in recent months, Orange County has been hit with a spate of often violent attacks.

Twelve days ago, a man and a woman robbed and kidnaped two Rowland Heights women at knifepoint in La Habra and dumped them out of the car three hours later, bruised and shaken, near the Mexican border. Police released a sketch but still have no one in custody.

In recent weeks, carjackers have also struck repeatedly in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton and Westminster, demanding at gunpoint that their victims turn over their vehicles. And in Sherman Oaks, former Orange County resident Sherri Janine Foreman, 29, was stabbed to death March 30 by a would-be carjacker as she left an automated teller machine. The pregnant woman’s fetus died as well.