I-77 shootings on back-to-back nights leave 2 people injured, Midlands police say
Gunmen injured two people in unrelated shootings Thursday and Friday on Interstate 77 near Cayce and in Richland County.
Cayce Department of Public Safety is investigating the Thursday night shooting.
A driver had just gotten onto I-77 North from 12th Street at about 10 p.m. when another driver pulled up beside him and fired, according to a police report. The shooter fired at least four bullets into the other vehicle. A police officer found three bullet holes in the rear passenger door and one near the handle of the front, driver-side door. The driver-side window was shot out. The driver was shot in the upper arm and taken to the hospital. The wound was not life threatening, an investigator said.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the Friday night “road rage” shooting.
Deputies were called to I-77 and Percival Road where witnesses told them a person had shot into their vehicle on the interstate, the department said. One vehicle cut off another, enraging a driver. The situation escalated and a person shot at the victim’s vehicle, shattering the windshield. No one was hit with bullets, but glass injured one person, deputies said.
The shootings on back-to-back nights come as state agents and Richland County police are reporting a major surge in violent crime.
Thursday, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division released preliminary findings from an annual statewide crime study that showed murders increased 25%, from 457 in 2019 to 571 last year. Murders have increased 51% in the past five years. Aggravated assaults, which include shootings that injure, also increased from almost 19,500 to nearly 21,300.
Richland County and Columbia police have stressed that the area is dealing with a major rise in gun violence. The sheriff’s department has had 54 shooting victims this year compared to 30 at this time last year. Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook said Columbia is seeing a “precipitous” increase in shootings.
At a Thursday news conference, SLED Chief Mark Keel expressed his shock and dismay at the increase in killings and shootings in South Carolina. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott has appeared frustrated and exasperated at his own news conferences in recent weeks when talking the area’s surge in gun violence, calling it “a crisis” Tuesday.
Local and state agencies have urged communities to help police solve crimes so that people willing to act criminally are taken off the streets.
This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 1:24 PM.