SEATTLE — Within the last week, multiple KIRO 7 News viewers have reported seeing large objects being thrown from overpasses into the traffic below along the Interstate 5 corridor through downtown Seattle.
On Thursday, a driver’s dash-mounted camera captured a Lime e-scooter being hurled from an overpass near the Convention Center, smashing onto the lanes below, giving unsuspecting drivers no time to react.
“There was kind of just a flash of red coming down,” said Jeffrey Johnson after someone threw a Jump rental bike from the Denny overpass onto I-5 right into his path while he was driving to work. The collision caused damages in excess of $15,000 to his car and somehow just missed crashing through his windshield.
“Those bikes are probably 20 pounds plus,” he said. “It easily could have gone through the windshield, and I don’t know where I’d be right now.”
Johnson said it’s hard to comprehend why anyone would do something so reckless. “There was definitely some intent to cause destruction,” he said.
Last week, Rachel Brophy’s car was harpooned by a 5-foot rebar rod, which someone dropped from the 12th Avenue South overpass while she merged onto Northbound I-5 from Interstate 90.
The rebar lodged deep into her dashboard, and Brophy was cut with flying glass before she had realized what happened.
“I saw the rebar drilled into my dashboard,” she said. “I couldn’t stop shaking.”
On Friday at 9:35 p.m., a driver called 911 reporting someone dropping rebar from the overpass in the same area.
The Washington State Patrol told KIRO 7 News they have arrested people for dropping objects into I-5 traffic, but the reports of damage seem to be increasing.
“When is it going to end?” Brophy asked. “Is someone going to lose their life over this?”
In Johnson’s case, Seattle police did everything they could.
“Seattle PD had my back when I called them,” he said. “Immediately, they were like ‘Oh, we’ve already had this called in. We know about it. We’re trying to find the guy.’”
Officers found and arrested a suspect, according to Johnson. Johnson was told the suspect — who listed his address as homeless — was released the next day.
“There shouldn’t be people driving, worrying if there’s going to be foreign objects thrown onto their moving vehicle when they’re with their family or going to work,” he said. “Now, I have to second-check everything when I’m going through there, looking above. Is somebody going to throw something off there?”
Cox Media Group
