Police search for young carjacker
Marisa O’Neil
Police are seeking one of two teenage boys suspected of carjacking a
woman at knifepoint Saturday night.
Costa Mesa police arrested one suspect, a 17-year-old Garden Grove
resident, in Santa Ana after a short pursuit, Sgt. Bob Ciszek said.
Another teenage boy in the car got away, he said.
The carjacking happened at 9:45 p.m. Saturday, after a 24-year-old
woman pulled into an apartment complex parking lot in the 500 block
of Paularino Avenue, police said.
As she was unloading her car, two people described as teenage boys
approached her and asked for directions to Garden Grove, Ciszek said.
“Then one grabs her and puts a knife to her throat and takes her
keys, wallet and car,” he said.
Ciszek said the car was a 2001 Honda Insight, a gas-electric
hybrid. It does not appear the car was targeted because of its make
and model.
The woman, who has not been identified, was not injured in the
incident, Ciszek said.
She called to report the theft and police spotted the car entering
the Costa Mesa Freeway at the Fair Drive onramp and took chase, along
with a police helicopter, he said. The driver pulled off the freeway
at 17th Street in Santa Ana, then abandoned the car at Holt Avenue
and Impala Drive.
Orange County Sheriff’s deputies and Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and
Tustin police set up a perimeter and arrested one suspect nearby on
Weston Place at about 10:15 p.m., Ciszek said. The suspect’s name has
not been released because he is a minor.
Officers could not find the other suspect and police are still
investigating the case.
The arrest took place a few hours before and less than a mile from
an unrelated shooting on the Costa Mesa Freeway.
A 32-year-old Tustin man was shot at about 1:45 a.m. Sunday as he
drove north on the freeway near 17th Street, police said. He was able
to drive himself to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover.
It was the fifth shooting on a Southern California freeway in the
past six weeks. Sunday’s shooting took place on the same stretch of
road as a March 12 shooting that killed 26-year-old Fontana resident
Jake Tuason.
The most recent shooting appears to be random and unrelated to the
other shootings, California Highway Patrol spokesman Chris Johnson
said. The incident started on city streets and the man entered the
freeway to get away from a pickup truck that he believed was
following him, Johnson said.
The California Highway Patrol doesn’t plan to increase its
staffing on the freeway in response to the shooting.
“It’s not like we have someone seeking out people on the freeway,”
he said. “It was a matter of circumstances and being in the wrong
place at the wrong time.”
* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be
reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil @latimes.com.
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