Black Motorist Injured in Racial Attack

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

The unidentified victim, a 26-year-old South Gate man, suffered a graze wound to his ribs, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Lynn Nehring.

The shooting took place about midnight Friday as the victim drove alone westbound 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.

Four 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.

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

Police had no leads on the identity of the gunman or the other driver, he said.