Three freeway shootings in 24 hours

OAKLAND, Calif. - There's been three shootings in 24 hours on Bay Area freeways, according to the California Highway Patrol.

No freeway seems to be immune.

"I saw 580, Interstate 880, I mean the Bay Area is shooting. When does this stop?" asked Hercules City Councilmember Dan Romero.

The violence hasn't stopped, even though freeway traffic is down because of the shelter-in-place orders over the coronavirus. And that seems to have emboldened the shooters. Since April, there have been at least seven freeway shootings in places not covered by law enforcement cameras.

Romero is an outspoken supporter of cameras on the highways.

"We should have a bay-wide camera system on our freeways. It is sad that this continuing," Romero said.

At about 1 p.m. Wednesday, shots were fired during a road-rage incident on I-580 near Regatta Boulevard in Richmond. No one was hurt.

On Tuesday, though, two people were hurt in back-to-back shootings

At about 1 p.m., a driver shot another in the leg on Highway 85 near Union Avenue in San Jose during a road-rage incident.

Two hours later in Oakland, a 17-year-old boy was shot and wounded on I-880 near Coliseum Way in what the CHP said was a targeted incident.

A shooting back in April was deadly. Reno Fiapoto, 18, was shot and killed on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco in an apparent gang-related shooting.

The CHP hasn't reported any arrests in the recent shootings.

But surveillance cameras helped San Pablo police track down a man who allegedly chased a woman through city streets and then shot at her car along I-80. The suspect, Josha Watts, was quickly arrested.

"There's no real good reason not to use this type of technology because it works. It's greatly helped us," said San Pablo police Capt. Brian Bubar.   

That help might be on the way. KTVU has learned that there other regions in Northern California are considering the same freeway-surveillance system currently in use in Contra Costa County along I-80 and Highway 4.