Overpass Attacks Underreported, Seldom Solved

The California Highway Patrol has recorded at least 21 incidents of objects being thrown from Orange County overpasses since the beginning of the year, highlighting what authorities say is a persistent act of vandalism that sometimes leads to tragic results.

While there is no indication that the pace of incidents is increasing, the critical injuries sustained early Wednesday by 5-year-old Bryan Donis draw fresh attention to a chronic danger faced by motorists--people tossing debris onto freeway lanes.

And it often is a crime that goes unsolved.

“As far as our investigation is going, it’s a shot in the dark, a needle in the haystack,” said CHP Investigator Glen Mayernick, adding that motorists often don’t report incidents unless someone is hurt or a vehicle badly damaged. “It happens a lot more than we usually keep statistics for, and it all falls under freeway violence.”

Often, authorities say, the debris is tossed by teens or young adults playing pranks without regard to the consequences. Two years ago, for example, a boy threw pieces of concrete onto the Riverside Freeway in Fullerton, damaging several cars and injuring three motorists.

On Wednesday, Bryan suffered at least two fractures to the skull when a 5-pound paving stone crashed through the windshield of the pickup truck his father was driving as it passed beneath the McFadden Avenue overpass above the San Diego Freeway in Huntington Beach.

Bryan, of Laguna Niguel, remained in critical condition at UCI Medical Center on Saturday.

Mayernick speculated that the brick-thrower probably lives in the area. He said investigators have questioned nearby residents but had no suspects.

“These things usually present themselves as crimes of opportunity,” Mayernick said. “They may have picked it up on the roadway and thought that some car is going to go by and ‘I’m just going to throw it over there. Hey, it’s the Fourth of July.’ Or it could have been a dare or prank with two or three kids together. . . . This is a horrible thing that happened.”

Measured against other causes of fatal crashes--for instance, thousands die nationwide each year in crashes involving drunk drivers--deaths from thrown objects are relatively few. Statewide, 10 people were killed in collisions with thrown objects in the five-year span ending in 1998, the last year for which statistics are available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In that same time span, 632 adults statewide were charged with felonies after motorists or passengers were injured by thrown objects, though officials believe the number represents a fraction of actual attacks.

In the same five-year span, 131 adults were convicted of such felonies and 222 more were convicted of misdemeanors in incidents in which only property was damaged. No numbers were available for juvenile arrests.

The problem stretches nationwide. In Florida, one teen currently is on trial on murder charges and another already has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for their alleged involvement in a March 1999 spree of rock-droppings onto freeways. Police say the teens drove from overpass to overpass in the Sarasota area, dropping increasingly larger items until a 32-year-old motorist was killed by a 22-pound chunk of concrete.

Three weeks ago, a 34-year-old woman in San Diego suffered severe injuries when a 5-pound rock was thrown through the window of the vehicle in which she was riding.

And last spring, three teens were arrested in Anaheim after construction site debris was flung onto the Santa Ana Freeway, damaging at least eight cars.

Despite the persistence of the incidents, there has been no legislative push for remedial action, such as requiring installation of protective fencing along overpasses, said Jay Barkman, an aide to Assembly Transportation Committee member Lou Correa (D-Anaheim).

“It would be hard to do on a statewide basis,” he said, adding that such incidents are rare along remote stretches of highways. “It’s probably best to leave it up to regional transportation authorities.”

Officials for the Orange County Transportation Authority could not be reached Friday for comment.

Jim Drago, spokesman for Caltrans in Sacramento, said pedestrian walkways on newly constructed overpasses in populated areas are fenced. There are no plans to retrofit bridges.

In Orange County, Caltrans has jurisdiction over 330 overpasses, but it was not immediately clear how many of those have protective fencing along walkways.

“That would be driven by the need,” he said. “It’s the same way we do a number of safety improvements.”