ONE KILLED IN FREEWAY GUN BATTLE HIGH-SPEED SHOOTOUT HALTS RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC.

Byline: Emanuel Parker Staff Writer

PASADENA - A high-speed, rolling gun battle between people in two cars ended in Pasadena on the westbound Foothill Freeway on Friday with one person dead and another in critical condition.

The car-to-car shooting, which was reported by motorists on the freeway in the Duarte-Monrovia area, ended at 4 p.m. just west of the Hill Avenue on-ramp.

Pasadena police Lt. Mike Korpal said a man believed involved in the shooting was driven by his companions to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where he died.

Another man was driven to a Pasadena fire station and then rushed by paramedics to Huntington Hospital where he underwent surgery. He was listed in critical condition. Korpal said the man was shot in the stomach and possibly the side.

Two people in a red Pontiac who transported the man who later died were detained by Glendale police. Pasadena police went to Glendale to question them.

Police refused to release the names, ages, race or home towns of the victims. Korpal did say the wounded man and the dead man were not from Pasadena.

The lieutenant said the people in the cars knew each other.

One of the men involved said he and his companions came from somewhere in the Inland Empire, officials said. ``This was not a gang-related or random act,'' Korpal said. ``It was deliberate and all the people involved are adults, not youngsters.''

He said motorists in the Duarte-Monrovia area reported seeing a red Pontiac and black Ford chasing each other and swerving in and out of traffic at high speed.

Judging by the bullet holes in the Ford, which was abandoned on the 210 near Hill, and the shell casings recovered nearby, it's likely shots were exchanged before the vehicles arrived in Pasadena, Korpal said.

The westbound 210 was closed for the police investigation at Sierra Madre Boulevard, where traffic was diverted to Maple Street and allowed back on the freeway at Lake Avenue. Westbound freeway traffic was backed up 11 miles, according to reports.

Shortly after 7 p.m. two far left westbound lanes on the freeway were reopened. Eastbound lanes and surface streets paralleling the freeway also were snarled with heavy rush-hour traffic.

Police and CHP officers formed a line across the freeway and slowly searched the pavement looking for shell casings and other evidence.

Korpal said police recovered some evidence but he wouldn't say if that included weapons.

There were five people in the two cars, but Korpal said police haven't sorted out who was in which car. He said police don't know if the dead man and the wounded man were drivers or just passengers.

``We don't know what the motive for the shooting was,'' he said. ``It's too early to speculate about that.''

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Photo:

Pasadena police officers walk down the Foothill Freeway, searching for evidence in a shootout that left one man dead and another in critical condition.

Walt Mancini/Staff Photographer