Updated at 4:05 p.m. Feb. 11, 2015
A house painter was jailed Wednesday on suspicion of unleashing a fusillade of gunfire on CBS News 8 sportscaster Kyle Kraska in front of his Scripps Ranch home, leaving him seriously wounded.
Mike Montana, 54, surrendered to SWAT officers at his El Cajon home shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 10 hours after allegedly ambushing the longtime local broadcaster.
Kraska had hired Montana to paint his house and wound up in a dispute with him over the job, San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl said. The nature of the disagreement was unclear, the lieutenant said.
Montana was booked into San Diego Central Jail about 5:45 Wednesday morning on suspicion of attempted murder. He was being held without bail pending arraignment, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
The suspect allegedly opened fire on Kraska, 48, just after 3 p.m. as he was backing out of his driveway in the 12000 block of Avonette Court.
Kraska remains in Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla in “critical but stable” condition after sustaining 10 gunshot wounds, CBS 8 reported.
Neighbors in the upscale area described hearing six to eight shots followed by a pause, after which a similar number of reports rang out. Witnesses then saw an older-model white minivan with the words “Superior Painting” on the sides speeding off.
The gunfire left several windows blown out of Kraska’s silver Mercedes- Benz. The victim was found lying face-down on the pavement outside his car and was taken to Kraska to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla for treatment of wounds to his abdomen and leg.
In the late evening, News 8 anchor Barbara-Lee Edwards tweeted that her colleague was out of surgery with a good prognosis.
The suspect reportedly once lived illegally in a storage unit at Gillespie Field in El Cajon. CBS News 8 interviewed a former neighbor of Montana’s who described having run-ins with him. The man said he believed Montana at one point was on psychotropic medications, the station reported.
The former neighbor said his son had received disturbing voicemails from Montana — “not direct threats, but talking about his guns and how good a marksman he is, so (they were) insinuated threats. It got to the point where the girls in the office didn’t want to come to work. They were scared of him.”
Kraska has been with CBS News 8 since 1999. The Emmy Award-winning broadcaster spent four years as morning and noon co-anchor before moving into the sports department 12 years ago, according to the station.
— City News Service
