Black Motorist Hurt by Gunman Using Racial Slur

A 26-year-old black motorist narrowly escaped serious injury early Saturday morning when a white passenger in another car shouted a racial epithet and then unloaded six rounds from a .45-caliber handgun into the victim’s car.

The victim, a South Gate man, suffered a graze wound to the ribs but otherwise was unhurt, Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Lynn Nehring said.

The shooting took place about midnight Friday as the victim drove alone west on Los Alisos Boulevard south of Jeronimo Road after visiting his girlfriend in Mission Viejo, Nehring said.

Two white men in their mid-20s, riding in a four-door gray Honda or Nissan, pulled up alongside the driver’s side of the victim’s car, and the passenger shouted a racial slur, Nehring said.

“The victim reached down to turn off the car radio, and when he looked up he saw the passenger pointing a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun at him,” Nehring said. “The suspect began firing at the victim, striking his vehicle six times.”

Four of the shots passed through the driver’s door and lodged in the passenger seat and passenger door, and a fifth bullet struck the rear fender, Nehring said.

“As the victim was applying his brakes, the suspect apparently fired one round back at the victim, who was behind them,” Nehring said.

The victim by then had crouched down in his seat, and the sixth shot passed through the windshield and grazed the back of the man’s ribs, Nehring said. The victim was treated and released from Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills.

Nehring said police were able to identify the weapon through the victim’s description and bullets recovered from his car, but they had no leads on the identity of the gunman or the other driver.