Police: Man tumbles 150 feet after throwing rocks at traffic

A Laguna Beach man was taken to undergo psychiatric evaluation Tuesday after witnesses said he threw rocks at moving cars along North Coast Highway.

No one was injured but the man fell 150 feet down a hillside toward El Morro Beach, Laguna Beach police said.

Officers responded to the Irvine Cove area at 4:33 p.m. to reports of a man heaving rocks at passing cars and walking into traffic lanes.

“He was just grabbing them off the side of the road, nothing too big,” Capt. Jason Kravetz wrote in an email. No cars were hit.

The 56-year-old man refused officers’ requests to step out of the highway and onto the sidewalk and jumped onto a nearby hillside, tumbling 50 feet, Kravetz said.

Laguna Beach firefighters tried to pull him up, but the man resisted and fell an additional 100 feet onto the sand, where police were waiting.

The man was not arrested but underwent a psychiatric evaluation.

—Bryce Alderton

Twitter: @AldertonBryce