Report: Suspect arrested in Phoenix-area shootings

PHOENIX, Az. -- Gunfire erupted around a northeast Phoenix-area highway that left one motorist hit, another wounded in a carjacking, and a patrol cruiser struck by a bullet. Authorities said early Wednesday that a suspect had been arrested.

The violence began late Tuesday night on and around Highway 87, in the northeastern suburbs, Maricopa County Sheriff's Det. Doug Matteson said.

He said that a person in a vehicle opened fire on a passing car and struck a person inside.

Then the suspect fled toward a nearby casino, shooting and wounding another person while carjacking a vehicle.

The suspect was "firing rounds into that vehicle and striking another person, who was taken to the hospital," Matteson told ABC15 (KNXV-TV).

A while later, a Department of Public Safety officer was chasing a vehicle and the officer's cruiser was hit by gunfire.

There are "one or two people who are out there that have been shooting at either the public and also police cruisers," Matteson said.

Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer Damon Cecil told the station early Wednesday that a suspect had been taken into custody.

No other details on the arrest were immediately available, including the suspect's name,

Matteson said that several roads in the area, about 30 miles northeast of central Phoenix, had been shut down as authorities investigated multiple sites where shootings occurred.

The Arizona Republic reported that investigators said the shooter or shooters likely initially parked along Highway 87, known as the Beeline Highway, and then shot at vehicle on a nearby roadway.

The newspaper reported that the first person shot was just grazed. There was no word on the condition of the person hospitalized following the carjacking.