Youth, 17, Shot : Death Raises Level of Fear on Highways

While police searched for suspects in the latest highway shooting, an anguished grandmother mourned the death of her 17-year-old grandson Saturday and asked, “What can we do with these streets? We cannot continue this. Highways are becoming a gun place.”

Her grandson, Russell Joseph Pirrone, was shot in the head Friday evening by a cursing passenger in a pickup truck on California 71 in Pomona. He was the second victim killed in a half-dozen highway shootings in the last month. Two others were wounded.

At the family’s Pomona home on Saturday, the victim’s grandmother, Jean Pirrelli, described young Pirrone, son of Larry Pirrone, as a “typical good American boy” who would have been a senior this fall at Damien High, a Catholic school in La Verne, where he played football and ran track.

A friend of Pirrone, who was riding with him when the youth was shot, issued an appeal for possible witnesses of the shooting to call police. He estimated that at least 60 cars passed him as he stood in the highway trying to flag down help.

“Somebody had to see something,” he told The Times. “The people that passed by had to see that truck go somewhere. Perhaps they were behind it when the driver got on the 60 freeway or turned left on Garey.

“Russell was my friend. He was only 17 years old and he didn’t deserve to die.”

He remembers the pickup as a short-bedded, light metallic blue 1986 or 1987 Nissan or Toyota, with stock rims. The police description adds that the truck did not have a side mirror on the passenger side and few, if any, letters on its tail gate.

Pirrone’s friend, who requested anonymity, recalled that there was a white box, possibly for tools, in back, with two young men, thought to be Latinos from 16 to 22 years old, sitting next to it.

Incident Described

The man who shot Pirrone with a small-caliber handgun was sitting on the passenger’s side in the cab. He is believed to be a Latino, ranging from 25 to 40 years old, with a drooping mustache.

Pirrone and his friend had taken a break from cleaning an apartment Friday evening to get hamburgers. They drove in Pirrone’s Volkswagen Beetle to the stop light where Old Pomona Road meets California 71, then turned south on the two-lane highway.

“We hung a right. The traffic was still coming. They honked directly behind us and called us names. Then, they pulled up on the side. I looked over and saw that there was no danger, and I looked away,” the witness said. “They went a little forward, then slowed down. I heard a noise, and I looked up and saw the guy with a gun in his hand. We still continued to go forward after Russell was shot, but we started to slow down.

“I took control of the wheel, pulled the car over, then jumped out and went out into the highway to get people to stop. They were just swerving around me. They wouldn’t stop. I put Russell on the other side of the seat and got back in the car. The car ran out of gas and stopped as I was trying to turn left on Garey. I jumped out and ran all the way to a service station to call police.”

Pirrone was taken to Pomona Valley Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m.

Reaction of Neighbors

Shocked neighbors, who did not want their names published, described young Pirrone as a “happy-go-lucky kid, who was very affectionate to his family.”

“You just can’t say enough nice about him,” one said. “He was just really a good kid. He took newspapers to the church every week.”

Armando Lamb, who lives nearby, said his youthful neighbor was a “nice clean-cut kid” adding: “It’s really sad. Bright. Seventeen years old. Big future. Just cut off. He had plans.”

Lamb commutes long distances to work at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City. He said the recent outbreak of highway shootings has made him cautious.

“If someone wants to cut me off, they’re welcome,” he said. “In fact that happened to me yesterday. Someone moved in behind me and started flashing their lights. I just moved over and let them go.”

In the earlier fatality, Rich Lane Bynum, 24, was shot and killed in a car driven by his girlfriend on the Santa Ana Freeway in Santa Fe Springs June 20.

‘A Kind of Mystery’

Lt. Larry Todd of the Pomona Police Department said the outbreak of seemingly mindless violence is “a kind of mystery, especially this one.”

“Drivers get frustrated, and usually it’s the driver who has the immediate need to vent his frustrations,” Todd said. “In this case, it is the passenger. It kind of makes you wonder what the motive is.”

In another highway shooting incident, the driver of a Volkswagen van was shot at by a passenger in a car behind his vehicle in Seal Beach Saturday afternoon. No one was hurt.

Seal Beach Police Officer Greg Young said there were four passengers in an old Gremlin following the Volkswagen van at 3:30 p.m. on the Seal Beach Boulevard on-ramp to the northbound lanes of the 405 Freeway.

He said the gunman fired with a “long barrel weapon,” perhaps a rifle or shotgun, just as the van was about to enter the freeway.

“The shooting was unprovoked,” Young said. “A car just drove up and someone shot out the back window of the bus.”

The police spokesman said that four men were riding in the brown Gremlin, which had one door painted yellow. He said the van’s driver was unable to get the license number of the car after it passed him on the freeway.

The victim told police that he last saw the Gremlin heading toward Long Beach on the freeway. He said he tried to follow the car for about two miles before he gave up, stopped and called authorities.