This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Arizona authorities confirmed Thursday that 11 vehicles have been shot with bullets or other projectiles in the last two weeks, nearly all of them on freeways in the Phoenix area.

The latest confirmed shooting involved a commercial truck whose driver reported a bullet hole in the cargo area on Thursday morning. The driver had been making deliveries for hours, and wasn’t sure when or where the truck was shot, an Arizona department of public safety spokesman, Raul Garcia, said.

Most of the vehicles hit since the gunfire began on 29 August were travelling on Interstate 10, a main route through central and west Phoenix. No one has been seriously injured, but one bullet shattered a windshield, and broken glass cut a 13-year-old girl.

“Anytime that you have multiple shootings against American citizens on a highway, that’s terrorism,” the department of public safety director, Frank Milstead, said. “It’s just a matter of time before there is a tragedy.”

Authorities also were studying a tractor-trailer rig at a location near I-10 and a car whose window was severely cracked on Thursday, but those results weren’t conclusive, Garcia said.

The shootings have rattled nerves and heightened fears among drivers that a possible serial shooter could hit them next. Electronic freeway billboards urge people to call a hotline with any tips. Some are commuting on city streets instead.

It’s unclear if the attacks are connected. Most were hit by bullets; some projectiles were harder to identify.

The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local police are helping. Authorities are conducting surveillance and deploying undercover detectives; a police Swat team and gang taskforce also are assisting, and police have quadrupled a reward to $20,000 for help identifying a suspect.

But Graves said details of the surveillance effort and investigation will not be revealed.

“We’re not going to give the nuts and bolts of our investigation,” Graves said. Doing so “would help the bad guy”.

The Phoenix attacks recall other random highway and roadside shootings in recent years, most notably the sniper attacks that terrorized the nation’s capital more than a decade ago before those criminals were captured.