Spate of highway shootings and other attacks unnerves Phoenix area

A series of shootings and other attacks along Phoenix-area freeways have unnerved drivers and led police to worry that a gunman might be targeting vehicles along Interstate 10 in Arizona.

From Aug. 29 through Tuesday, at least nine people have said their vehicles were struck by bullets or other types of projectile, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

A teenage girl suffered minor injuries during the first incident, on Aug. 29, state officials said, but police have confirmed in only two of the cases that bullets were used.

It remains unclear whether the injured girl was struck by gunfire or by debris after the vehicle she was riding in was damaged by other projectiles, authorities said.

Bart Graves, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said all nine incidents happened on a stretch of Interstate 10 from west of downtown Phoenix to the central part of the city.

A few months ago, similar attacks caused panic in northern Colorado. Those springtime attacks left two people dead and two others injured.

Although there is no information suggesting Arizona’s shootings are related to Colorado’s, Graves said, state investigators have contacted police in Colorado as a precaution. Calls to a spokesman for the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the investigation in Colorado, were not immediately returned.

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Graves said much remains unclear about the recent attacks in Phoenix. Authorities have not been able to cobble together any description of a suspect, and Graves said there might be more than one assailant.

Police have only been able to determine that bullets were used in two of the attacks in late August. It remains unclear whether other projectiles were employed in the other seven incidents, Graves said.

“Of those first four, we called them shooting incidents,” Graves said. “But I don’t think it’s safe to say we think they are all as a result of gunshots.”

On Wednesday, Arizona public safety Director Frank Milstead announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.

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