There’s concern that news media coverage of an unsolved shooting spree along the I-96 corridor is spreading fear in the motoring public.
Its happened a couple times since the shooting spree investigation started a few weeks ago. The news media starts reporting on a new possible incident involving the shooter. Only later it turned out that it was a minor ‘road rage’ incident or a rock hitting a car windshield.
“So what’s getting out there is ‘you can’t travel 96 without getting shot at.’ That is not the case.” says Lt. Mike Shaw of the Michigan State Police.
Shaw says constant media updates on events that are not related to the shooting spree is spreading fear.
“Every time something happens on the freeway or the corridor does not mean that it is part of this case,” says Shaw, “It creates a higher level of fear to the motoring public. And that’s what we don’t want to do.”
Since October 16th, two dozen cars have been shot at, with one person suffering a minor injury. Only three of the incidents actually occurred on I-96.
More than two thousand tips have come in from the public. Most since the reward for information was increased to more than one hundred thousand dollars.
