BY KATE ROBERTS, The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A trucking association asked drivers to report anything out of the ordinary to law enforcement as authorities try to solve 12 shootings -- one of them fatal -- along a stretch of interstate in Columbus.
The American Trucking Associations sent the alert this week to drivers, who can use a toll-free number that links them with law enforcement.
In the Washington-area sniper shootings case, a truck driver was credited along with another man with tipping police to the suspects’ location.
“He saw an alert to truck drivers on the news. We have about 30,000 members who can act as eyes and ears on the road,” said truckers association spokesman John Willard.
Truck driver Lance Weaver said he has started watching fences along the highway for movement as he hauls steel, lumber, military equipment and other cargo around the Midwest.
“You’re looking, when normally, you wouldn’t even think about it,” Weaver said.
Ballistics tests have definitively linked four of the 12 shootings -- three in vehicles and one at an elementary school -- and investigators believe the others are also connected.
The shootings began in May but most occurred in the past two months on or near the same short stretch of Interstate 270 south of downtown Columbus; the last was Nov. 25, when Gail Knisley was killed. She was the only person hit.
The Columbus Dispatch reported Friday that a woman reported a flat tire along the stretch of I-270 six days after the fatal shooting. Homicide detective Wayne Goss said the damage “appeared to be a bullet strike,” but no slug was found. Authorities would not confirm the report.
State transportation officials say an average of 77,000 vehicles travel each day on I-270 and U.S. 23, the north-south artery that intersects 270 near where the shootings happened.
“Ohio’s one of the top states in terms of all traffic, not just truck traffic,” said Dave Bartosic, spokesman for the Ohio Trucking Association. “It’s called the bridge state. You have to go through here to go just about anywhere.”
So far, 836 Ohio drivers, and thousands nationally, have been trained through the trucking association’s Highway Watch program, Bartosic said.
All trucks carrying hazardous materials must use I-270, which rings Columbus, or find smaller county roads because they are prohibited from bringing their loads through downtown.
In one of the shootings, an Akron couple reported that one of several juveniles on an overpass had a gun and shot a hole through a horse trailer they were towing, a State Highway Patrol report said.
The couple, who later refused to talk to reporters, did not report the Aug. 31 trailer damage until three days after Knisley’s killing.
Franklin County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Steve Martin said Thursday that investigators have not discounted the couple’s report, but there is no indication that juveniles are responsible for any of the other shootings.
A bullet from the trailer did not come from the same gun as the four connected shootings, but the report is included with the 12 because it came from the area police are investigating, Martin said.
A sheriff’s report on the damage said it happened on I-270, but Patrol Sgt. Rick Zwayer said the couple was not sure where they were driving and a witness following them said they were on U.S. 33 several miles from the other shootings.