Multiple Car Windows Chipped, Cracked or Shattered Near Fortuna This Last Week

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Rain and a glass chip on Sunni Killfoil’s car window.

Multiple moving vehicles have been damaged in the last week near Fortuna between the Kenmar Exit and Palmer Blvd. Most have occurred on Hwy 101. Jenni Gans posted on a social media site that today she was traveling northbound from Kenmar exit to around Palmer Boulevard.  “I heard a loud pop and saw that my windshield had been hit,” she wrote. “…[T]here was only one car in front of me and it was about 6 car lengths ahead…whatever hit my windshield landed pretty hard.”

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Jenni Gans’ window after something struck it today.

Gans said that normally she would not have thought much about it but last week a coworker’s boyfriend was driving near Palmer Boulevard and, “just out of the blue, his driver’s side window shattered.”

Gans suggested that possibly someone might be throwing rocks or shooting at cars with a bb gun. A California Highway Patrol spokesperson suggested that it was possible that construction can cause loose rocks on the road that might increase incidents of windshields being struck.

After Gans posted on the social media site, eight more people commented that they had also been struck by something in the area. One person posted a shot of a passenger window that had been completely destroyed. Others gave second hand information about friends who had been impacted.

Martial Arts teacher Melanie Gordon was one of the people who said that her window had been hit. She was driving northbound near Palmer Boulevard last week when the “bottom center of the windshield was struck.” Luckily, she said, “it just made a small pit.” She said, “To the best of my knowledge there was no construction.”

A California Highway Patrol spokesperson said that if you are the victim of a similar incident in the future, contact them at (707) 268-2000.

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28 Comments
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Life is Good
Guest
Life is Good
8 years ago

CHP spokesperson. Construction rocks on the road don’t cause passenger windows to blow up. FYI

sharon
Guest
8 years ago

Some little punk is obviously shooting cars with a bb or pellet gun. Theres apartments along the way. Target practice for some tweek. But i guess thats what some sicko wants. Tweekers suck.

Cheryl Cudney
Guest
Cheryl Cudney
8 years ago

Just happened to me tonight about 6:10 PM ~ same location

Carli
Guest
Carli
7 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Cudney

Happened to me at 5:45 on the 20th

MOLA:42
Guest
MOLA:42
8 years ago

It could be spent bullets from the other side of the river. Folks like to do target shooting on the riverbank opposite Riverwalk. Sometimes they get bored with that and shoot randomly (I assume) over the river toward town.

I remember a few years back two Sundays in a row when bullets whistled past me while walking my dogs. One hit a tree near me. I imagine the stuff that is aimed higher goes over everything and arcs onto the 101.

It could be the “punk with the b.b. gun” scenario, but it seems to me the person doing the shooting would need to be pretty close to the road to smash auto glass.

Roxanne
Guest
Roxanne
8 years ago
Reply to  MOLA:42

I think there are too many occurrences for it to be anything but intentional. On the social media post that Kym mentioned, there were at least 13 incidences mentioned, all recent. I think that should have been noted in the article.

sharpen your pencil
Guest
sharpen your pencil
8 years ago
Reply to  MOLA:42

You don’t keep up on the river bar obviously. The property owner has shut down vehicle access to the bar, so yeah a few years ago perhaps. Highly unlikely however. Somebody is doing this on purpose. Nobody is shooting the freeway from the river bar fyi, unless they are doing it with a 50 cal, in which everyone within atleast a few miles would hear that.

Dyerville Loop is Not Alderpoint
Guest
Dyerville Loop is Not Alderpoint
8 years ago

X-FLIES?

Hick
Guest
Hick
8 years ago

Lets see? Who is a major provider of gravel in that area? Hmmm? Who could it be? It’s a mystery!

Let's think about this...
Guest
Let's think about this...
8 years ago
Reply to  Hick

Yes. I’m sure a manufacturer is chucking their own product up a hill, over a median and across the highway with enough downward velocity to break a windshield. After hours even! That’s is quite the arm, they should pitch for the Giants!

G-ma
Guest
G-ma
8 years ago

Had to be pretty big rock,it doesn’t look like a bb,maybe pellet?would it shoot that.far?idk it just sucks,and scares the crap out of you as well.PLEASE DRIVE ALERT there’s a ton of shitty drivers this morning and lots of water we slipped out on the crap that comes from a redwood tree all over the road and in a ditch,good Monday yay

Benbow
Guest
Benbow
8 years ago

The person who said it might be people shooting guns on the river bar has been using some of humboldt finest! That place has been closed for awhile now. And second, any rifle, even the smallest caliber would easily carry far beyond the city limits of fortuna. A .22 rifle has the ability to carry for over two miles from the location it was fired. Unless fired straight up, and then the bullet would be falling in its trajectory. And it’s extremely unlikely that a person could fire a bullet roughly a mile straight up and then impact an area roughly ten square feet.
That statement about it being riverbank shooters was highly ignorant. And probably coming from an anti gun liberal who would like to take away the rights that allow us to possess firearms. I could go on and on about how unlikely and near impossible it would be for someone on the river bar shooting a rifle to hit the windshield of a moving vehicle. I think any smart person could understand what I have tried to portray.

Lost Croat Outburst
Guest
Lost Croat Outburst
8 years ago
Reply to  Benbow

The property owner on the river bar only recently closed off access; it was just in the media. Too many yahoos don’t care about private property or safety, and that jeopardizes our gun rights, as well as public safety. Still, my guess is it’s a poorly supervised young male with adolescent issues in the immediate neighborhood. Likely a BB or other air gun.

MOLA:42
Guest
MOLA:42
8 years ago
Reply to  Benbow

Benbow:

I don’t want your gun… You can keep it but thanks for the offer.

I don’t have a problem with guns, just with the idiots who abuse them.

As to the property being closed to vehicle traffic… Folks do have feet and use them. The other day I was at the dog park and could hear the shooting as always.

I admit I’ve not been on the Riverwalk in several years now… Something about not enjoying being shot at. I’m just silly that way I guess.

Slingshot
Guest
Slingshot
8 years ago

Transients camp in the trees between the highway and the Eel river through that stretch. Could very well connected?

Palmer Creek Resident
Guest
Palmer Creek Resident
8 years ago

There is no construction happening in that area. It could be stay bullets or pellet/bb, but with that frequency and the blown out window I don’t think it would be “stray”. There are no apartments long the freeway, as one person posted. For those who question the stray bullet theory, it was only a few years ago that a man working on a loader at Eel River Sawmills was killed or injured by a not-so-stay bullet from someone in the river.

Gazoo
Guest
Gazoo
8 years ago

Makes one want to break out some ninja skillz and lay and wait for the little bugger, then make him pick a switch like me grandpappy used to do to us for misbehaving

G-ma
Guest
G-ma
8 years ago

Ditto!!

Laura
Guest
Laura
8 years ago

My friends car windshield was hit while I was a passenger 2 weeks ago! We were on Hwy 101, headed north between 12th St. and No. Main St. exit.

Kym Hansen
Guest
Kym Hansen
8 years ago

My windshield was hit this morning. I have a pretty good ding in the glass. There were no other cars near me, in either direction. This was in a different area, just south of Kenmar, going north on 101. I called CHP tonight, but they said there is nothing they can do unless the report comes in immediately after the incident so they can send someone out to look around.

Casey Hall
Guest
Casey Hall
8 years ago

I had the same thing happen to me about 2 months ago right between the last FORTUNA northbound exit and Palmer blvd. It hit right in my line of vision on my windshield a few days before the weather got cold for a few weeks. The crack spread due to the cold. There was no one driving in front of me, I was on my way to school around 9am.

Nancy Stinson
Guest
Nancy Stinson
8 years ago

this happened to me early last week. missed my windshield but the impact pop startled me. there were no cars around. I was Northbound on 101 just North of Kenmar turn off. My daughter also has a shattered windshield she discovered about 4 days ago and does not recall a flying rock or other incident. we live in Rio Dell so travel that stretch of road daily. Sorry, but this is more than random stray bullets from target shooting or construction rocks. City cops, CHP, Sherriff need to get on this. This is what we pay them for. Time to get to work boys. . .before someone gets in an accident or shot.

Forager
Guest
Forager
8 years ago

There was series of similar incidents that started in March in Northern Colorado. Local investigators dismissed them, at first, as caused by road debris, but they mostly involved side, back and sun roof windows, and were heavily concentrated along I-25. The incidents didn’t get much attention till April when a woman was hit by a bullet in the neck as she merged onto I-25. Over the next two months there were three more random shootings in the area, two of them fatal, and many more window shatterings along I-25. A Websleuths thread (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?297139-CO-Possible-Serial-Shooter-Has-Colorado-Drivers-on-Edge-4) started tracking the case and keeping a well documented Google Map of the series (https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z_XRj_yu3Dto.kzPJOvnNDQio). No suspects have yet been identified in the four shootings, or in the series of window shatterings, and it hasn’t even been established whether the two series are related. A multi agency task force continues to investigate.

Edward Viies
Guest
8 years ago

My windshield got hit also along there too last 9-10 days. Hit hard as if someone threw it.

BananaNut
Guest
BananaNut
7 years ago

The side of my truck got hit while going north around Kenmar a couple weeks ago. I heard the impact, but there were no cars around me on either side of the road.