Oregon State Police releasing new information about shootings along I-5

JOSEPHINE COUNTY, Ore. — At least five people have found bullet holes in their cars after traveling down I-5 this summer in both Josephine and Douglas counties.

Oregon State Police still doesn’t have many details on the five shooting incidents that have taken place this summer along I-5 from Grants Pass to Roseburg. While they do have some people reporting that bullets have hit their cars as well, they believe there might be more out there.

“People are traveling through the area using I-5 as a thoroughfare between California and Washington,” Oregon State Police Lieutenant, Stephanie Bigman said. “They get up the road and something goes wrong with their car, flat tire or a coolant leak something like that, and they’re realizing there is a bullet hole in their car.”

OSP said it first received a report of a bullet hole in a car traveling along I-5 back in May, but the agency is continuing to receive reports through the summer as recently as a week ago.

“It’s really hard to collect evidence and find locations and determine the time and place of these things,” Bigman said.

A lot about these incidents is unknown, but here’s what OSP said it does know: at least three passenger vehicles and two trucks have been hit, and it’s happening in the areas between milepost 67 to 100 on both the north and southbound sides of I-5. Lieutenant Bigman says a lot of the important questions are still unanswered.

“We’re not sure if we have a shooter, several shooters, we’re not sure what type of gun is being used at this point,” Bigman said.

Police said part of what’s making it so hard to investigate is that people may not realize they’ve been hit until much later on.

“They recognize, yeah I was traveling through that area in the early evening hours and then they traveled to California, so we have these huge swaths of time that we’re trying to narrow down,” Bigman said.

Because of all the unknowns, Lieutenant Bigman believes there are probably more people that have been hit out there, but just don’t realize it yet.

“We’re really looking for more people out there that maybe have taken a bullet into the car, into the tires so we can try to narrow this down,” Bigman said.

Police ask that anyone with information call *OSP or *677. If you believe you have been hit, a trooper will come out to examine your car for bullet holes.

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