Youth Stabbed in Head With Rod on Life Support

A San Clemente high school senior was on life support systems with severe brain injuries Sunday, stabbed through the head with a metal paint-roller rod after being assaulted by more than a dozen suspected gang members at a beach, police said.

Steve Woods, 17, was in a coma after the Friday night attack. He was in a truck with friends when the vehicle was attacked by the alleged gang members above a parking lot at Califia Beach County Park, police said.

Woods and his friends had just gathered at the park after a high school football game when one student, confronted up the hill from the parking lot by young men carrying chains, hurried to warn his friends, who got in their cars to drive away in convoy. “Nobody . . . wanted to fight. We were just trying to get out of there,” the student said.

Woods was in the front passenger seat of the first vehicle, a truck. As it drove past the assailants standing at the roadside, the student said, the attackers broke windows and threw objects. Others inside the car ducked, but Woods slumped over, the metal rod speared through his head above his right ear.

Police have arrested four adults and five juveniles on suspicion of attempted murder.