Police urge caution, tighten security with shooters still at large

Rifle-toting police clad in bullet-proof vests combed western Albemarle County on Thursday as helicopters thundered overhead in a massive search for two gunmen who fired at travelers on Interstate 64, wounding two in the wee-hour darkness.

As police prepared to tighten security overnight on the bustling interstate, the shooters remained at large. They likely are still in the area, Virginia State Police Col. Steve Flaherty warned.

"I wouldn't tell people to avoid [I-64], but I would tell people to be observant of anything that looks suspicious," Flaherty said.

Shots hit two cars, a van and a tractor-trailer, striking a Swoope man in the shoulder and wounding a woman. Police declined to identify the victims. Both were treated and released from Augusta Medical Center early Thursday.

Police from at least five agencies searched for the shooters, seen by witnesses in the vicinity of the Route 690, Greenwood Station Road overpass and the westbound off-ramp at I-64's Ivy exit when shots were fired from those sites. A unoccupied dump truck at a Virginia Department of Transportation facility in Yancey Mills, near Crozet, was also shot multiple times.

Authorities recovered matching caliber shell casings from the three shooting sites, but said ballistics tests will have to be conducted before they can determine if a single gun was used.

Waynesboro and state police are working to determine whether two early-morning shooting incidents in the city are linked to those on the highway.

Police received a report of gunfire directed at vehicles from the Route 690 overpass at 12:10 a.m. Thursday and continued to receive calls about shooting on the highway for the next half-hour, but they said they could not determine exactly how long the shooting continued or where it started.

"With these locations, obviously if it was the same individuals, they had to drive some distance, so it took some time for that to occur," Flaherty said. 

Police said a least two people were involved in the attacks, but offered no specific description of the suspects. Police said they had not determined a motive.

Nancy Fox, of Greenwood, said she knew something was up when she spotted a helicopter flying over her home early Thursday.

"It's such a quiet community," said Fox, who has lived in Greenwood for 50 years.

E.O. Woodson awoke to police blocking one end of Greenwood Station Road and, after watching television reports of the sniper shootings, "looked inside my shed. Someone could have been hiding there," he said.

With reports continuing to flow in, police shut down a 22-mile stretch of Interstate 64, from mile marker 96 just outside Waynesboro to mile marker 118 in Albemarle County. Traffic backed up for more than two miles before authorities reopened both lanes shortly after daybreak.

As the drama unfolded on I-64, several shots were fired between midnight and 2 a.m. at the Dupont Community Credit Union on Lucy Lane, striking a repossessed vehicle in the parking lot, a window and exterior wall of the bank building and a sign by the road. Police are searching for an older model, light-colored AMC Gremlin with a dark stripe running the length of the vehicle that was caught on a surveillance camera.

"We're just thankful it was during the night and no one was here," said Jackie Cason, vice president of human resources at the credit union.

Waynesboro police also responded at 1:30 a.m. to reports of shots fired on North Commerce Avenue. They initially found nothing, but returned later in the day and located a shell casing and two bullet holes in the side of a private home.

"The shots woke us up," said homeowner Jill Tice, 43. "Then we heard a car speed off."

Investigators will be comparing evidence from the North Commerce Avenue and Dupont Credit Union crime scenes to see if the shootings are related, Waynesboro police Sgt. Kelly Walker said.