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Thu 27 Mar, 2008 04:48 pm
I woke up this morning and heard on the radio that I-64 just west of Cville was closed due to "Police Action." Schools were going to delay opening for a couple of hours, but that was quickly changed to schools being closed for the day.
Last night, just after mid-night, sniper(s) starting shooting at motorists on I-64, which runs E-W and passes just South of Cville. Two folks were slightly injured either by bullet fragments or by shattered glass.
The tally released officially is that 6 cars were confirmed hit, but I am hearing that, as people driving through that area last night heard the news, they looked at their cars. The number of cars hit could be 10.
The shots, according to the police, were fired by gun(s) of equal caliber. They wouldn't say the same gun. Fired from 3 different overpasses on I-64 that do not have access from I-64. That means that the shooters (the police are now saying without explanation that there was more than one person involved) navigated the back roads.
I'll let you know if I learn more.
(Thanks to the couple of a2kers who pm'ed me, knowing I live in Cville. We are coming up on the 1st anniversary of the VA Tech tragedy and a couple years before that we had the snipers in Northern VA).
Not much to say about it, except I hope they are quick to track them down.
<nodding at edgar>
Says something sad that we aren't outraged enough to post a lengthy discourse about what is happening to the world these days.
My God, John of Virginia. As you know, I went to UVA and my husband went to Virginia Tech. Scary, buddy. Just gave me a shiver, as I was talking about UVa on the radio thread.
An Update:
This appears to have been resolved with the arrest of a 19-year old Friday morning at a house on a horse farm near Crozet, 10 miles west of Cville. When police arrived at the house they encountered a second person armed with a handgun. He was shot and was taken by helicoptor to UVA Hospital. His identity and condition have not been disclosed and he has not been charged yet.
The night before the I-64 shootings, a house and a business in Waynesboro, a city 25 miles west of Cville on the other side of the mountains, were fired into. A surveillance camera captured the image of a car that was traced to the 19-year old. The search warrant that the police got for this morning's raid was related to that incident. Police appear to be able to make a link to the I-64 sniper case, probably from a witness who saw the same or a similar vehicle in the area. Ballistics tests on weapons presumably seized should strengthen that link.
So it looks like this scary thing has been taken care of by some good police work.
As an interesting little aside, there has been some controversy in Cville about surveillance cameras. Private businesses routinely use them. Our police chief asked city council to allow them on public property under the jurisdiction of the police. Specifically, he wants to place them on and near our 8-block long pedestrian mall. There are a lot of restaurants and clubs. Public parking is available one block north and one or two blocks south. We had a spate of incidents lately where groups of "young men wearing white t-shirts" (read 14-16 year old black males) would attack people heading to their cars, beat them up and then run like hell.
Council, consisting entirely of Democrat in this decidedly liberal city. is reluctant to go along with what they fear could be Big-Brotherism. Some also wonder who would have access to the tapes. Would they be in the public domain? Might they become public if they show a prominent person leaving a club wrapped around a person who is not a spouse?
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