A string of seemingly random shootings along Interstate 5 in Washington State on Monday injured at least five people and struck up to seven vehicles, the police said Tuesday.
The shootings occurred in two bursts, the police said, when vehicles traveling on the interstate between Seattle and Tacoma were targeted by a shooter apparently firing at random vehicles.
The first series of shootings occurred around 8:30 p.m. local time, when three vehicles were struck with bullets while driving on I-5 near Seattle. In one vehicle, a person was grazed with a bullet and another was injured by broken glass; in another vehicle, a woman was critically injured and remained in the hospital Tuesday evening.
More shootings occurred around 11 p.m., with three more vehicles targeted. In one, the driver and passenger sustained leg wounds. In another, an occupant was shot in the neck and remained in the hospital on Tuesday evening.
In four of those instances, the victims reported the shots coming from a white Volvo, and in the other two there was no description of the vehicle. There did not appear to be any connection between the victims, officers said, and the targeting appeared to be random.
Officers located the vehicle around midnight near Tacoma and arrested a suspect after a brief chase, the police said.
As news of the shootings spread, a seventh potential victim contacted the police on Tuesday and said they noticed a bullet hole in their car after returning from an evening drive on I-5 Monday.
State police in Washington announced they would add patrols to the I-5 corridor on Tuesday evening. There was no further threat to the public, the police said, but they hoped the show of force would underscore that the interstate was a safe place to travel.
“This is not acceptable,” the Washington State Patrol chief, John R. Batiste, said in a statement. “People have the right to travel safely in this state and we are going to protect that right.”
The incident resembled a similar spate of shootings that occurred along the same highway in December, when a gunman opened fire on at least six vehicles and injured one occupant. The man, Marco Antonio Ramos Valdez, 28, was charged with two counts of first-degree assault; he said voices in his head had told him to commit the shootings.
Though officers noted the similarities between the two shooting sprees, they declined to speculate on the mental state of the suspect arrested in the most recent shootings.
“We will not be making speculations about the suspect; we will not be making speculations about their mental state,” Chris Loftis, the communications director for the Washington State Patrol, said in a news conference on Tuesday. “We’re not in the speculation business; we’re in the investigation business. The roadways are not a platform for people’s grievances.”
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