-
Mar 28, 2008 6:50 pm US/Eastern
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Cops Arrest 2nd Teen In Va. Highway Shootings
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS News) ―
Police in Virginia say they have arrested a second suspect in a series of shootings along a mountain highway.
Police say the second person arrested is a 16-year-old from Crozet, Va. His name was not released.
Earlier, state police said Slade Allen Woodson, 19, was arrested Friday morning as police searched a farm in a rural part of central Virginia.
State Police Superintendent Steven Flaherty said Woodson has been charged with 12 counts and the juvenile faces 10 counts. He said the two suspects were friends.
Six vehicles were hit during the gunfire that began early Thursday on Interstate 64. Two cars, a van, a tractor-trailer and an unoccupied dump truck were among the vehicles that were struck. Two people were injured, but their wounds were not life threatening.
State Police Superintendent Steven Flaherty said Woodson was arrested at about 5 a.m. near Crozet at a residence called Yonder Hill Farm.
Flaherty said there were five people at one of two homes on the property. He said a man there opened fire on police as they served a search warrant at 4:48 a.m., and police returned fire, wounding the armed man.
Flaherty did not identify the man, but said he was flown to University of Virginia Medical Center.
"We've taken some mighty big steps toward resolution of this case," Flaherty said. "Everyone can rest compared to the state we were in last night."
Dozens of police officers, SWAT team members and FBI agents converged on the scene and a medical helicopter was seen flying away from the home.
Police also were trying to determine whether shots fired at a bank in Waynesboro between midnight and 2 a.m. Thursday were connected to the highway shootings. Waynesboro Police Sgt. Kelly Walker said four bullets struck the building, a sign and an unoccupied van in the parking lot.
Walker said police found a light-colored AMC Gremlin seen on surveillance video around the time shots were fired. Thee car had been abandoned along U.S. 29 in Albemarle County.
The early Thursday shootings had motorists and police on edge in a region where memories of the deadly Beltway snipers still haven't faded.
Flaherty, the state police superintendent, said he would not characterize the shootings as the work of snipers, calling it "random firing."
There were differences from the sniper spree of nearly six years ago, including the fact that those attacks targeted people who were standing outside their cars.
Nevertheless, Flaherty conceded the 2002 attacks, in which 10 people were killed and three wounded in Maryland, the District of Columbia and northern Virginia, were on investigators' minds as they sought those behind Thursday's spree.
"It reminded us of a lot of emergencies we've had," said Flaherty, whose agency also dealt with last April's Virginia Tech shootings.
Residents, too, were mindful of the crimes of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who were convicted in the 2002 shootings. Christy Lucado, who drives through the area on the way to work, said she immediately thought about the sniper shootings Thursday morning when a friend called and told her the news.
"I thought, well, Lord, my car's out in the driveway, my keys are in it and I'm up on the mountain by myself," said Lucado, who waits tables at Duner's restaurant in Ivy, near the exit where one of the latest shootings happened.
"We're talking the mountains up here, and the first thing you usually think of is drunk rednecks. But the fact they moved from one exit to another makes me think it wasn't just someone there shooting off their gun," Lucado said.
Police took a call from a driver whose vehicle was hit just after midnight. Four more occupied vehicles headed westbound were shot, one at an on-ramp at Ivy, the others at an overpass in the Afton area. An unoccupied Virginia Department of Transportation dump truck was targeted later, farther down the interstate.
The 20-mile stretch of I-64 between Waynesboro and Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, was closed for nearly six hours while police searched for suspects and evidence. The interstate reopened around dawn.
Albemarle County public schools closed for the day, but decided to hold classes again on Friday.
"Given the unknown nature of a still-evolving situation, the idea of putting children in buses, cars or unsupervised at rural bus stops did not seem like the best thing to do," said Lee Catlin, a spokeswoman for the county.
Police think the bullets were all of the same caliber but they could not be sure until ballistics tests are completed.
The two injured motorists were treated at hospitals and released. Flaherty said he did not know whether the victims were struck by bullets or shattered glass.
Flaherty said that the shooters could still be in the area, but that there was no need for motorists to avoid I-64. Police planned to deploy additional officers in the area Thursday night if no arrests were made, he said.
Robert Caldwell, owner of Duner's, said he took I-64 Thursday morning and noticed police at every overpass. "I've never seen so many state police," he said.
In January 2007, Woodson was arrested for allegedly stealing two cars and lighting them on fire. Police said Woodson stole the cars from the Crozet area, reports CBS News affiliate WCAV-TV.
Court records show Slade A. Woodson was convicted last year of two misdemeanor counts of petit larceny and given a suspended sentence. The Daily Progress of Charlottesville reported he was charged with stealing two pickup trucks from Crozet and setting them on fire.
On a MySpace page for a Woodson from Afton, Woodson lists his occupation as "mechanic, sorta" and writes "I'm just a country boy who keeps gettin his heart broken!"
On another MySpace page, Woodson lists his occupation as a "horse farm."
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)