An artillery round fired over Interstate 5 at Sunday’s live-fire demonstration at Camp Pendleton prematurely detonated, striking and damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle that was part of Vice President JD Vance’s detail, the CHP said Sunday.
The CHP released an internal report Sunday that indicates some shrapnel from “explosive ordnance” struck an unoccupied patrol vehicle after it “detonated overhead prematurely” over southbound I-5. CHP officers working in the protective services detail had parked the vehicle near the Las Pulgas Road exit while freeway traffic was halted.
Marines were firing artillery from the coast to inland impact zones on the other side of the freeway.
One officer reported hearing what sounded like “pebbles falling” on and hear his CHP motorcycle. He reported finding a piece of shrapnel approximately one inch in length and a half-inch wide near the patrol motorcycle, according to the report.
No injuries were reported.
The CHP released photographs of what is described as a piece of the shrapnel as well as photos of the damaged patrol vehicle’s hood. Officers described the shrapnel that dented the patrol car as being two inches by a half-inch.
“This was an unusual and concerning situation,” CHP Border Division Chief Tony Coronado in the statement. “It is highly uncommon for any live-fire or explosive training activity to occur over an active freeway.
“As a Marine myself, I have tremendous respect for our military partners, but my foremost responsibility is ensuring the safety of the people of California and the officers who protect them.”
According to the CHP, the Marine Corps canceled firing additional live ordinance over the freeway after officers reported the mishap. The incident prompted a call for additional after-action review and better “communication and coordination between federal, state and local government,” the agency said in a statement.
According to a CHP report, the artillery round was fired from Camp Pendleton’s White Beach, approximately three-quarters of a mile south of the base’s Las Pulgas exit from I-5. The artillery round detonated mid-flight and failed to clear the roadway, the CHP said.
After the round failed, the exercise was terminated, and no additional munitions were fired. Marines had planned to fire approximately 60 rounds, the CHP said.
The performative shelling was part of an Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration on San Diego County’s largest military base, north of Oceanside.
An estimated 15,000 invited guests, including active duty sailors and Marines and veterans, attended the event which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vance. Attendees watched a video feed of the exercise occurring nearby on Pendleton’s Red Beach while a narrator gave a play-by-play of the action over a loudspeaker.
Staged to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps, the event was recorded for a future prime-time broadcast.
Live-fire aspects of the event, which involved Marine forces moving from Navy ships offshore onto Pendleton’s Red Beach near Las Pulgas, included firing howitzer artillery cannons over the freeway to land in a “whiskey” impact zone far east of the freeway that has long been used for live fire exercises.
The event had prompted a tense back-and-forth between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and members of the Trump administration in the days leading up to the exercise.
A statement from Pendleton officials suggested that closing the freeway for the exercise would not be necessary because live fire would be confined to approved shooting ranges.
But the state ultimately said that it felt compelled to close the freeway from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday after it received a request to post signage warning motorists that live fire would be arcing overhead the freeway.
“We love our Marines and owe a debt of gratitude to Camp Pendleton,” Newsom said in a statement posted on X, “but next time, the Vice President and the White House shouldn’t be so reckless with people’s lives for their vanity projects.”
Asked to comment on the CHP’s statement late Sunday afternoon, Capt. Gregory Dreibelbis, current operations officer in the Communications and Strategy Office of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, said that an investigation into the shrapnel incident had been launched.
“We are aware of the report of a possible airborne detonation of a 155mm artillery round outside the designated impact area during the U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration at Camp Pendleton,” Dreibelbis said in an email.
The demonstration, he added, “went through a rigorous safety evaluation and deliberate layers of redundancy, to ensure the safety of fellow citizens.”
Those protocols, the officer added, required firing to be suspended until the root cause of the apparent misfire is determined.
Dreibelbis said that the Marine Corps is very confident in the M777 artillery cannons that were fired Saturday.
“Indirect weapons systems, such as the M777, are designed to fire over the heads of friendly forces to achieve effects on our adversary,” Dreibelbis said. “We trust this system with our lives.”
It was not clear Sunday how often live fire originating west of I-5 passes over the freeway en route to Pendleton’s broad and well-used impact zones deep inside the massive base, which covers about 200 square miles.
In addition to the freeway, Pendleton is the home of the now-defunct San Onofre nuclear power plant and an active rail maintenance yard near Oceanside, in addition to a Border Patrol checkpoint.