A 28-year-old Auburn man was arrested Thursday night, suspected in at least two of six seemingly random shootings targeting drivers on Interstate 5 and other highways in South King County, according to the Washington State Patrol.
All six shootings occurred Wednesday between 9 and 11:40 p.m., though two of the shootings weren't reported to investigators until Thursday, Trooper Rick Johnson said in a news release.
One man was driving south on I-5, just north of South 320th Street in Federal Way, when a bullet was fired through his window, striking him in the neck at 9:20 p.m., the release says. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center and is expected to recover. His passenger was not injured.
Twenty-two minutes later, a vehicle was struck by a round as the driver was heading north on I-5 near South 200th Street in SeaTac, according to the State Patrol news release. No one was hurt.
The drivers in those shootings told troopers the gunman was in his 30s, driving a light blue Nissan 370Z with a large rear spoiler and chrome rims that was last seen leaving the freeway onto Interurban Avenue in Tukwila, Johnson said in the news release.
Those descriptions enabled troopers to identify the suspected shooter's car using footage from traffic cameras in Tukwila and an alert from a community-safety system in Auburn, the release says.
An alert went out to police across King County about the shootings and the State Patrol learned a little after 10:30 p.m. Thursday that the Nissan was in Auburn. Troopers found the car parked outside a residence and watched as a man matching the shooter's description drove away before they pulled it over in a traffic stop, the news release says.
The man was arrested and troopers saw a handgun, loose ammunition and a shell casing inside the Nissan, according to the State Patrol. He was booked into the King County Jail on investigation of assault and drive-by shooting, jail records show.
Two of the other drivers whose vehicles were struck by gunfire could not describe the shooter or the shooter's vehicle.
Aside from the man who was shot in the neck, no one else was injured.
