{"id":13623,"date":"2025-10-20T04:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T04:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/13623\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T04:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T04:04:08","slug":"california-police-say-shrapnel-hits-and-damages-a-patrol-vehicle-during-marine-corps-drills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/13623\/","title":{"rendered":"California police say shrapnel hits and damages a patrol vehicle during Marine Corps drills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Metal shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell fell hit and damaged a California Highway Patrol vehicle as personnel at a U.S. Marine Corps base fired live rounds over a highway \u2014 against the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> \u2014 during weekend exercises observed by Vice President JD Vance, state authorities said Sunday. No one was injured.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred when ordnance detonated overhead prematurely during Saturday’s exercise at Camp Pendleton, the California Highway Patrol said<\/a> in a news release. <\/p>\n

Newsom<\/a> had strongly objected to the firing of munitions over Interstate 5 for safety reasons. The Democrat closed a 17-mile (27 kilometers) stretch of the road connecting Los Angeles and San Diego during the drills, which were held to mark the upcoming 250th birthday of the Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred in an area where officers had shut down traffic, the highway patrol said.<\/p>\n

A Marine Corps spokesperson said the service was aware of \u201ca possible airborne detonation\u201d of a 155 mm artillery round outside the exercise’s designated impact area. <\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing established safety protocols, firing was suspended. No injuries occurred and the demonstration concluded as scheduled,\u201d Capt. Gregory Dreibelbis of the I Marine Expeditionary Force said in an emailed statement. <\/p>\n

An investigation has been initiated, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to determining the incident\u2019s root cause and applying findings to future missions,\u201d Dreibelbis said.<\/p>\n

The Marine Corps had said there was nothing unsafe about the exercise and that it was unnecessary to disrupt traffic on I-5.<\/p>\n

An incident report filed by the highway patrol said one officer heard what sounded like pebbles falling on his motorcycle and about 3 feet (91 centimeters) around him. His motorcycle was not damaged. He found a 1 inch-by-0.5 inch (2.5 cm-by-1.3 cm) piece of shrapnel nearby. <\/p>\n

One unoccupied patrol vehicle was hit by shrapnel. Officers found a 2 inch-by-0.5 inch (5 cm-by-1.3 cm) piece of shrapnel on the vehicle. It left a small dent and scratch on the vehicle’s hood. <\/p>\n

Officers said they notified the Marine Corps, which then canceled the firing of additional live ordnance over the freeway. Officers didn’t find any additional metal on freeway lanes and reopened the road. <\/p>\n

Newsom, a Democrat, posted a comment on the social media site X Sunday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe love our Marines and owe a debt of gratitude to Camp Pendleton, but next time, the Vice President and the White House shouldn\u2019t be so reckless with people\u2019s lives for their vanity projects,\u201d Newsom said. <\/p>\n

Vance, a Republican, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the base in north San Diego County for the Nov. 10 anniversary of the Marine Corps’ founding and to watch troops demonstrate a beach assault. Vance spent four years in the Marines and served a tour in Iraq. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Metal shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell fell hit and damaged a California Highway Patrol vehicle as personnel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,457,12164,6500,7716,17],"class_list":["post-13623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-gregory-dreibelbis","tag-jd-vance","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}