Road Rage Insanity

TWO ARRESTED AFTER SHOOTOUT ON I-80
Chase ends in a crash, closing two eastbound lanes of the freeway and sending two to hospital

By Cassandra Braun and Karl Fischer
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

RICHMOND - Police are investigating a roving shootout Thursday between two cars that triggered a chase and ended in a crash on Interstate 80, briefly shutting down two eastbound lanes.

An officer was patrolling the 4200 block of Hilltop Drive around 5:40 p.m. when he saw the occupants of a Honda sedan and a four-door Lexus exchanging gunfire, Sgt. Enos Johnson said.

The officer pursued the Honda onto eastbound I-80, where the driver lost control in the fast lane and smashed into two passing cars under the Richmond Parkway overpass. The accident shut down the two left lanes for about a half-hour.

The Honda's driver, David Khettavong, 22, was trapped in the car as a result of the accident and arrested at the scene. The car had been reported stolen.

Two people from the other cars involved in the accident were flown with non-life-threatening injuries to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, police said.

Meanwhile, officers were using K-9s to track one of the shooting suspects, who witnesses said jumped out of the car after the impact and ran across four lanes of westbound I-80 traffic and down an embankment toward Hilltop Mall, Johnson said.

About 8:30 p.m., a resident on Flannery Road in the Tara Hills subdivision in unincorporated San Pablo just west of I-80 reported that a suspicious man was in the back yard.

California Highway Patrol officers and Contra Costa sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene and arrested 24-year-old Johnson Phommaphat, the passenger in the stolen Honda.

Both suspects were booked at County Jail in Martinez on charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

Police are still looking for the other vehicle, a four-door white or tan Lexus, that was involved in the shooting.