Serial shooter suspected on Arizona roads

State DPS director: Vehicle incidents probed as ‘domestic terrorism crimes’

A truck’s window is shattered on a Phoenix freeway as authorities investigate a string of highway shootings that is rattling nerves.

PHOENIX — A truck’s passenger window was shattered Wednesday on a Phoenix freeway as Arizona authorities investigated a string of highway shootings that have rattled nerves and heightened fears of a possible serial shooter.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said authorities are looking into the window incident, and the agency has not yet confirmed whether the glass was shot out. Nobody was hurt, he said.

Authorities were already investigating nine shootings of vehicles over the past two weeks. Four cars were hit last week along the city’s main freeway. One bullet shattered a windshield and the broken glass cut a 13-year-old girl.

Police on Tuesday announced that they were investigating five more shootings, including one that shattered the window of an off-duty police sergeant’s vehicle as he drove to work. Then Wednesday, investigators raced to a gas station after the driver of a white truck pulled off Interstate 10 with his window shattered.

Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead called the incidents “domestic terrorism crimes.”

“Any time that you have multiple shootings against American citizens on a highway, that’s terrorism,” Milstead said. “They’re trying to frighten or kill somebody.”

His agency brought the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local police into the investigation.

Police have been asking for the public’s help in identifying a suspect, including putting messages on freeway billboards urging people to report suspicious activity. They quadrupled the reward Tuesday to $20,000.

Graves said the agency would not discuss the surveillance or other aspects of its investigation, including whether any bullets had been recovered, whether the shooter or shooters fired from vehicles or alongside freeways and whether more than one weapon was involved. Police also do not know if all nine of the shootings are connected or whether a copycat might be at work.

“We’re not going to give the nuts and bolts of our investigation,” Graves said, adding that doing so “would help the bad guy.”

Investigators don’t know a possible motive for the shootings, Graves said.

“Ten days, nine incidents,” said Milstead. “This is a real and continuing threat to Arizona motorists.”

Arizona Department of Public Safety via Associated Press Four vehicles traveling on the same freeway in the heart of Phoenix have been struck by gunshots in the last week, and the state police agency is appealing for information from the public as it conducts what it says is a robust investigation.