SANTA FE SPRINGS – A 17-year-old boy died and two men were wounded but expected to survive after a car-to-car shooting on the 5 Freeway late Wednesday, authorities said.
Coroner’s officials did not release the dead teenager’s name Thursday afternoon, deferring all questions to sheriff’s investigators. Sheriff’s officials also did not identify him.
The three shooting victims had been riding in a minivan. They flagged down an ambulance crew just after 9:40 p.m. at Rosecrans Boulevard and Marquardt Avenue, Lt. Dave Dolson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau said.
“The information that we have is that it happened on the freeway,” he said.
The attack was believed to have taken place on a three-quarter-mile stretch of the northbound 5 Freeway, between Carmenita Road and Rosecrans Boulevard, investigators said.
After being wounded, the men exited the freeway at Rosecrans Boulevard and drove east about a mile until they spotted an ambulance and sought help, officials said.
No description of the vehicle that contained the shooter or shooters was available, Dolson said. A motive was not clear.
The teenage victim, who was a passenger in the minivan, was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting at UCI Medical Center in Orange County, officials said.
The two other men who were wounded in the minivan were in their 20s and 30s, Dolson said. They were hospitalized in stable condition.
California Highway Patrol officials shut down all northbound lanes of the freeway during the investigation, CHP Officer Francisco Villalobos said. Traffic was diverted off the freeway at Valley View Avenue.
The left lane of the northbound 5 Freeway was reopened at midnight, he said, and the remaining traffic lanes were opened shortly after 4 a.m.