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.