Rush-Hour Shootout Puts Hagerstown On Alert
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- Police followed a trail of shell casings and watched home security video Thursday to trace a rush-hour shootout between two vehicles that careened through at least eight blocks of densely packed homes.
Investigators had no one in custody but said they recovered two guns near a Dodge Grand Caravan that was abandoned by its three male occupants after it crashed into a guard rail with its rear window shot out. The pursuing car, a dark Chevrolet sedan with at least two occupants, disappeared in traffic shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, Capt. Paul Kifer said.
He said investigators found no evidence anyone was hurt in the cars or on the streets and sidewalks of the neighborhood north of the city center. Kifer said police have increased their presence in known trouble spots "to make that this doesn't escalate any further."
The city of 40,000 about 70 miles west of Baltimore is no stranger to street violence; there were five homicides in Hagerstown last year and a string of gang-related shootings. But Kifer said the brazen, daylight shootout was "outrageous."
"This is something that just cannot be tolerated. I mean, it's amazing that no one was hurt," he said. "This wasn't a middle-of-the-nighttime thing -- this was five o'clock in the afternoon."
Kifer said investigators are confident they'll identify at least some of those involved, largely due to information and home surveillance video volunteered by neighborhood residents.
"We did not have anyone that we talked to that didn't want to help us," he said.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
