Driver, 15, Accused of Ramming Officer

A 15-year-old boy was booked on suspicion of attempted murder Thursday, police said, for allegedly ramming his car twice into the back of a California Highway Patrol officer’s motorcycle.

The teenager was taken into custody just before 10 p.m. Wednesday, about two hours after a speeding white Oldsmobile registered to the youth’s uncle struck CHP motorcycle Officer Gary Ninman on the southbound Harbor Freeway, police said.

The second collision sent the officer flying off his motorcycle and onto the freeway, where he slid for a few hundred feet before falling into the fast lane, police said.

Ninman suffered a fractured arm and was in stable condition at UCLA Medical Center on Thursday, CHP officials said.

The car, which crossed over double yellow lines from the carpool lane near Manchester Boulevard to strike the officer, raced away, witnesses told police.

But the front license plate was knocked loose in the impact and left on the freeway, police said.

Ninman, who has been with the CHP three years, was going about 65 mph when he heard an engine revving up behind him and felt an impact as the car struck him from behind, said CHP spokesman Bill Preciado.

The officer was jolted, but he was able to maintain control of his motorcycle until he was hit again.

“It was just sheer luck” that he wasn’t injured more seriously, Preciado said.

Witnesses, some of whom were on their way to Los Angeles International Airport and missed their flights to stay with the injured officer, told police they believe the driver intentionally hit the motorcycle.

“They saw this guy purposefully hit the officer and then just take off,” said CHP Officer Rosa Ray.

The southbound Harbor Freeway was at first fully and then partly closed at that spot for several hours during the investigation. Traffic was rerouted onto surface streets.

It’s not uncommon for CHP officers to be threatened or attacked during traffic stops, but Wednesday’s incident was the first time in recent memory that someone intentionally hit an officer while he was “minding his own business doing his job,” Preciado said. Ninman was not chasing or following the white car.

Last month, a CHP officer from Santa Fe Springs was run over by his own patrol car after an arrestee sitting in the front seat wiggled out of his handcuffs and leg restraints, slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. The officer jumped out of the way in time and was not seriously injured, Preciado said.

Within an hour of Wednesday’s incident, police had traced the car’s registration and set up surveillance outside a house in the 4300 block of Lima Street in South-Central Los Angeles.

“We’re not totally stupid,” said Los Angeles Police Lt. Clay Farrell, describing how officers quickly saw the car and noted that the front was damaged in a way consistent with an impact with a motorcycle.

A short while later, a man came out of the house, got in the car and started to drive away. Police pulled him over and as they were questioning him, his teenage nephew approached the officers and confessed to the crime, police said. Police determined that the older man was not involved in the incident on the freeway. But when stopped for questioning, the uncle was driving under the influence of drugs and was carrying cocaine, police allege. He was arrested on drug-related charges, Farrell said.

Police said that they would give their evidence against the 15-year-old to the district attorney’s office and that they expect him to be charged within the week.