3 Questioned Over Chase, Shooting in South Oxnard

OXNARD — Two men and a teenage boy were detained for questioning Tuesday after a car chase through a south Oxnard shopping area resulted in the rear window and bumper of a vehicle being damaged by gunfire, police said.

No one was shot and the incident appears to be gang-related, police said.

The threesome were stopped in a black Honda Civic about 4 p.m. in the 300 block of Cedar Street after several witnesses telephoned authorities about the chase, Oxnard police said.

There had been no arrests as of 9 p.m., but gunshot residue tests were being conducted on the suspects’ hands to determine if one of them was the shooter, Police Sgt. Cliff Troy said. The results of those tests will not be available for several weeks, he added.

Officers at the scene said someone in the Civic threw a .22-caliber rifle out the window before the car was pulled over. The rifle was found by officers on Valley Park Drive about two blocks from where the car was stopped.

Officers first received a call regarding gunfire from a telephone in the 600 block of Kamala Street in south Oxnard. Similar calls followed, Troy said.

Officers said someone in the Civic fired at a late 1970s rust-colored Buick, striking the back window, trunk and bumper at least half a dozen times.

The Buick was found abandoned in the parking lot at the Centerpoint Mall in the 2600 block of Saviers Road, about five blocks from Kamala Street.

Before the Buick was abandoned, officers said it rear-ended a yellow sport utility vehicle that overturned at C Street and Channel Islands Boulevard, officers said.

One person in the sport utility vehicle was taken with minor injuries to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, a Gold Coast ambulance company dispatcher said.

The motive of the shooting was under investigation.

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Times staff photographer Carlos Chavez contributed to this story.