1 killed, 4 injured in highway shootings

Associated Press

BRISTOL, Tenn.

A newspaper carrier was killed and four other people were wounded when a man armed with two guns opened fire on cars traveling along a parkway in East Tennessee early Thursday morning.

A responding police officer was among those wounded.

Authorities would say little late Thursday about the alleged shooter or what might have motivated him to open fire on passing cars in the middle of the night. He was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with police and has not yet been charged.

Jennifer Rooney, a 44-year-old mother who delivered the local newspaper, was driving to pick up papers for the morning delivery when she was shot and killed, said Bristol Herald-Courier publisher Jim Maxwell. Her family declined to comment.

Maxwell called it a “senseless act of violence” that has stunned the small city on the Virginia border.

“Residents of our community woke up to what was expected to be a typical July warm and humid morning, except today they were greeted with news of this extremely troubling event,” Maxwell wrote. “It’s like the crazy stuff you read about or see on television from other places suddenly and unexpectedly materialized here in our backyard. Things like this just don’t happen here.”

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine said the suspect was armed with at least two weapons. He fired shots just after 2:15 a.m. at a Days Inn on Volunteer Parkway, then opened fire on passing motorists. DeVine said he then shot at responding officers, who returned fire and wounded the shooter.