Unconfirmed reports of gunfire less than a mile from Oceanside High School prompted a brief lockdown at the campus today.
Several 911 callers reported hearing shots about 10:45 a.m. near Cesar E. Chavez Park, just west of Interstate 5. A witness described seeing a green car pull up in front of an apartment building on Grant Street and a passenger fire two rounds at a man standing on the roadside, police Capt. Ray Bechler said.
The victim reportedly responded by hurling a rock at the vehicle, breaking one of its windows. The driver then sped off, rounded a corner and crashed the sedan into an unoccupied parked car, the captain said. At that point, the driver and her two or three male passengers jumped out and ran off.
One witness reported hearing a second burst of gunfire just prior to the wreck.
Administrators at the nearby secondary school secured students in their classrooms as a precaution while officers searched the area for the shooter. The lockdown had been lifted by 11:30 a.m., a dispatcher said.
Police were unable to locate the man who reportedly had been fired upon, and checks of area hospitals turned up no recent gunshot victims, according to Bechler. Officers also found no other direct evidence of gunfire in the neighborhood, he said.
The car the assailant reportedly was riding in had been stolen a short time earlier from in front of a home a few blocks from the scene of the crash. The owner told police he had left the vehicle briefly unoccupied with its motor running while he went into his residence to retrieve something he'd forgotten, and walked back outside to find it gone, Bechler said.
