By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Kentucky police searched for a suspect in rugged terrain near a national forest after at least seven people were shot and wounded while driving on a rural stretch of an interstate highway, authorities said Saturday night.
The incident began shortly before 6 p.m. (1000 GMT), about 9 miles (14 kilometers) outside the city of London, when police responded to reports of gunfire directed at vehicles traveling on Interstate 75 in Laurel County. The gunfire came from a wooded area or a highway overpass, according to local media.
Mayor Randall Weddle of London, a small town of about 8,000 near the Daniel Boone National Forest about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Lexington, said on Facebook that seven people were injured, some by gunfire. He added that there were no known fatalities. Police provided no further details on the number or nature of the casualties.
Weddle asked everyone in the neighborhood to “keep your doors locked while this guy is on the loose.”
The shooting comes days after two students and two teachers were killed and nine others were injured at a high school in Winder, Georgia. A 14-year-old student and his father, suspected of giving his son access to the gun used in the shooting, have been charged in the shooting, which happened shortly after the start of the school year.
A stretch of highway near the scene of the shooting in Kentucky was closed, but later reopened, although the suspect was still at large.
About three hours after the shooting, the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office named a “person of interest” who it said was “armed and dangerous” and warned the public not to approach the 32-year-old man.
“The suspect has not been arrested at this time and we urge people to stay inside,” Kentucky State Police Trooper Scottie Pennington wrote on Facebook.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called to assist state police and local law enforcement, the federal agency said on X, calling it a “critical incident.”
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; additional reporting by David G. Morgan; editing by Frank McGurty and Sonali Paul)
