by Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Kentucky police were searching rugged terrain near a national forest for a suspect after at least seven people were wounded by gunfire as they drove along a rural stretch of an interstate highway, officials said on Saturday night.
The incident began shortly before 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) about nine miles outside the city of London, when officers responded to reports of shots fired at vehicles traveling on Interstate 75 in Laurel County. The shots came from a wooded area or an 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 km) south of Lexington, said in a Facebook post that seven people were injured, including some who were shot. He said there were no known deaths. Police did not provide further information on the number or nature of any victims.
Weddle asked everyone in the area 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 injured at a Winder, Georgia high school. A 14-year-old student and his father, suspected of giving their son access to the gun used in the shooting, were charged in the shootings, which took place shortly after the start of the school year.
A stretch of highway near the Kentucky shootings was closed but later reopened even though the suspect was still at large.
About three hours after the shooting, the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office named a “person of interest” 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,” wrote Trooper Scottie Pennington of the Kentucky State Police 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 wrote 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)