The California Highway Patrol says that they are working hard to combat an alarming increase in highway shootings in the Bay Area.
CHP’s Paul Fontana tried to ease the fears of California drivers by noting that “the attacks mostly involve gang members targeting each other or people who are engaged in other kinds criminal activity that know each other and aren’t typically random shootings or road rage-type incident.”
In the past two weeks, two prominent California highway shootings have shone the spotlight on the issue. A seventeen year old male was shot on Highway 101 in San Jose last week. He suffered non life threatening injuries. Twenty four year old Demarcus Doss was killed as a result of gunfire on Highway 80 in Richmond the week before. Doss had no gang affiliation whatsoever, according to Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson.
Since 2015, CHP says that there have been 111 cases of highway shootings in the Bay Area. From those 111 shootings, 17 arrests have been made.
Said Fontana: “The CHP warns those that think that they can hide in the dynamic freeway environment to commit their crimes that the CHP is on high alert and we will catch you.”
CHP says that they are doing everything that they can to combat the highway shootings. They are increasing the number of troopers on staff and adding overtime patrols in an effort to make highways safer. They are also working with the FBI to set up a task force to fight highway violence.
They have installed more cameras in shooting prone areas and would like to install more, but they say that finding the funding to add more cameras is difficult.
CHP On ‘High Alert’ Over Highway Shootings https://t.co/vaIfZ7pDBN pic.twitter.com/emH6XuRMv7
— Alameda CA Patch (@AlamedaPatch) March 20, 2017