----Trucker Amy Holder was hit in the head. Her injury was not serious.----
Now there's two sentences you don't often see put together.
-Dan
Posted on 11/07/2004 12:08:25 PM PST by TYVets
KSDK) -- Two teens have been charged with shooting a truck driver near Bourbon, Missouri.
Missouri State police say 19-year-old Jeffrey Hubbard and 18 year old Paul Murta fired a .22-caliber rifle at a sign across Interstate 44.
Trucker Amy Holder was hit in the head. Her injury was not serious.
There have been other reports of vehicles being hit in that area. Police hope the arrests put an end to the incidents.
Hubbard is charged with assault. Both he and Murta are charged with shooting across a highway.
Since February, nine drivers have had the windows of their cars or trucks shattered as they drove on Interstate 44 near the city of Bourbon in rural Crawford County, southwest of St. Louis.
But it wasn't until Oct. 21, when truck Holder was shot while traveling along I-44, that police could confirm that a gun was used in any of the incidents.
Police said Sunday that Hubbard and Murta have been identified in connection with the shooting, but the investigation was not complete and charges were still pending.
The shooting has sparked a wave of fear among some truckers who use I-44, which runs diagonally across the state from St. Louis to Springfield.
"It's not a safe place to go," said long-haul driver Dalton Buff, 28. "I'll drive all the way through town to keep from going down that road. I believe it's teenagers, just doing it to have fun. But it's not fun."
The Missouri incidents have evoked memories of a series of shootings earlier this year along I-270 in central Ohio that left one woman dead.
Charles McCoy was arrested in March and indicted in April on 24 counts - including aggravated murder- related to 12 of the Ohio shootings.
McCoy has pleaded not guilty.
Coming after the 2002 Washington-area sniper shootings, which left 10 people dead and three wounded, the Ohio shootings unleashed a mood of terror among many residents.
Parents were afraid to leave their children at bus stops, commuters altered their routes to work. Businesses lost revenue as their customers stayed home.
So far, reaction to the Missouri incidents has been mixed.
Holder, 34, told authorities she was driving about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis at about 1:30 p.m. when something smashed the driver's side window and hit her head just above the left temple.
"The first officer on the scene, he was the first one that mentioned I could have been shot," she told The Indianapolis Star. "That just blew me away. I didn't have any idea."
Holder, who transports heavy appliances and other freight from Chicago to Dallas with her husband, was able to steer the 78,500-pound truck safely onto the shoulder of the road. She then called out for her husband, who had been sleeping in the truck's cab.
Holder was taken to a hospital. She was treated for her minor injuries, held overnight and then released.
Bourbon Police Chief Bill Williams, whose department started the investigation, asked the state police to become involved when he learned about the earlier window-breaking incidents on the interstate.
"Everyone is concerned," said Williams, whose city has about 1,500 residents. "I think there's a realization that we need to be in a heightened state of alert."
Billie Davis, owner of D&K Truck Brokerage in Rolla, Mo., about 40 miles southwest of Bourbon, said "the drivers are nervous, to say the least, about going through there.
"They're just out there trying to make a living for their families, and now they have to deal with this," Davis said.
"It has to be a pretty sick individual to stand on an overpass and shoot at people."
Between 35,000 and 38,000 drivers use that stretch of I-44 every day, according to the state highway patrol. But Ed Worley, presiding county commissioner, said few of those drivers are local residents.
"I haven't had any calls from anybody about it," Worley said.
"It just came out in the newspaper. That's the first the public around here has become aware of it."
County Clerk Connie Smith, a 39-year resident of Crawford County, said, "I'm not scared, and I get on it every other day. It's not a good thing to have happening, but we're not scared. I hope they find out who's doing it."
announce over the CB that these lads will be taken to a lonely
truck stop at 3am and dropped off there........
Now there's two sentences you don't often see put together.
-Dan
Missouri ping
I-44 Shootings suspects arrested
I don't think it will take 8 or 9 months for these lads ( Adults ) to understand the error of their ways, do you?
The damned MSM again! If a gun is involved they are 18-19 year old teens (just kids). If such things as voting is involved they are legal age adults.
Thank heavens! We don't have to worry about you and the family traveling that route.
No kidding! Whew!
Now that's just funny!! Good catch!
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