Traffic Dispute Ends in Laguna Man’s Slaying

A puzzling slaying after a traffic dispute on Laguna Canyon Road is this beachfront town’s second homicide this year.

Two men were being questioned Sunday in connection with the killing Saturday of 26-year-old Loren J. Chadwick of Laguna Beach, who was gunned down just 300 feet from the ice cream store whose owner was shot during a robbery last February in the city’s first slaying of 1995.

Chadwick was shot at least twice and collapsed at the top of a stairway in a narrow alley at about 10:30 p.m., police said.

The confrontation in downtown Laguna Beach occurred after a traffic altercation that apparently began near the intersection of the San Diego Freeway and Laguna Canyon Road, as Chadwick and three friends were returning from Irvine.

The white car in which Chadwick was a passenger cut off another white car as the two merged onto Laguna Canyon Road, police said. As both cars--each filled with four or five young adults--headed west, they passed one another on the winding road, and the occupants exchanged hostile words and gestures, Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said.

In downtown Laguna, a third car, a black BMW, pulled in front of the car in which Chadwick was riding and suddenly stopped. The other white car, following closely, boxed in the Chadwick vehicle from behind.

Young men stepped out of all three cars and began brawling, Purcell said. Then, one of the two occupants of the BMW pulled out a weapon and someone shouted, “He’s got a gun!”

Chadwick and his companions fled in all directions, Chadwick choosing the alley. The gunman walked fast toward the alley, “calmly took aim and started firing” about four rounds, Purcell said. Chadwick ran another 50 feet and up a short flight of stairs before collapsing, Purcell said.

Police on Sunday were still trying to piece together the events and the relationships of those involved. Purcell said he did not know how the BMW’s occupants were caught up in the dispute, or whether the occupants of the various cars knew one another.