Guns Waved on Freeway; 14 Arrested : Weapons: CHP says firearms weren’t used in a threatening manner, but arrests briefly halt traffic. Reputed San Diego County gang members are stopped without incident.

California Highway Patrol officers arrested 14 suspected gang members on the San Diego Freeway on Saturday afternoon after witnesses reported seeing a convoy of cars and pickup trucks weaving along the highway while passengers playfully taunted each other with firearms.

The suspects, believed to be members of the same San Diego County gang and ranging in age from 12 to 32, were all arrested on suspicion of brandishing handguns. Their arrests caused a temporary shutdown of heavy northbound traffic along the San Diego Freeway at Golden West Street.

Officers, with their guns drawn, confronted the suspects and recovered two handguns, both of which had been reported stolen from San Diego County, according to CHP Officer Angel Johnson.

No one was injured in the incident and authorities reported no gunfire, but Johnson said the arrests involving two pickup trucks forced a 10-minute freeway closure, causing traffic backups for at least two miles.

First reports about the gunplay came to authorities about 2:40 p.m. from motorists using emergency freeway call boxes and cellular telephones. Johnson said the witnesses first saw about five vehicles traveling north on the Santa Ana Freeway in San Juan Capistrano.

She said witnesses reported that the vehicles, which included two crowded pickup trucks, were “racing and driving recklessly” in all lanes of traffic. All the while, authorities were told, some passengers were displaying handguns to passengers in other vehicles as the convoy was making its way to a football game in Compton.

Johnson said CHP officers began trailing the group when the vehicles reached Sand Canyon Avenue in Irvine. More than half a dozen CHP units fell in behind the vehicles as they moved northbound on the San Diego Freeway.

Along the way, CHP officers were joined by local police units, but Johnson said speeds never reached dangerous levels and that the suspects generally complied when officers commanded the drivers of the two pickups to pull over at Golden West.

“Once they saw the officers, their driving really calmed down,” Johnson said. “There was no attempt to flee.”

In addition to weapons charges, authorities charged the driver of a Ford pickup, Dominic Kinder, 27, with drunk driving. David Kinder, 31, the driver of a Nissan pickup and brother of Dominic, was charged with possession of a controlled substance.