O.C. shootings: Man followed suspect on freeways
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Multiple 911 calls released by authorities Wednesday detailed bystanders’ shocked and saddened reactions to the shootings around the 55 Freeway a day earlier.
One man followed the suspect and directed dispatchers to his whereabouts. The calls provided more details of the carjacking rampage of Ali Syed, 20, that authorities say started with him fatally shooting a woman in his parents’ Ladera Ranch home and fleeing in the family SUV.
After shooting and wounding a man at a gas station, Syed took his Dodge pickup and headed toward the 55 Freeway. Authorities say he stopped on the shoulder of the freeway, got out of the truck and opened fire on cars speeding by, hitting at least three.
PHOTOS: Shootings at multiple locations in O.C.
One man, identified as Pablo by a dispatcher, called 911 and said he was at Edinger and Newport avenues, just off the 55 Freeway, right after authorities say Syed shot and killed a man at a Micro Center computer store in Tustin. That victim was later identified as Jeremy Lewis, 26, of Fullerton.
“Shots fired, shots fired!” the man shouts on the audiotape. He said that someone had stolen his white truck and shot his foreman.
“I need cops,” the man said. “There were shots fired and my truck has been stolen.”
Minutes later, the man says that he will follow the suspect in a yellow truck.
“I need an ambulance!” he shouts.
One woman who was traveling north on the 55 Freeway was breathless and crying as she called 911. She said she saw an “older-looking man” who was shot with a “big gun,” right off a freeway exit. That man was later identified as Melvin Edwards, 69. Edwards was on his way to work.
A separate caller said he was in his car and a man had been shot near the grass. Another man called to say that his White Saturn SUV had been shot on the freeway multiple times.
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