Search is underway for a man who might be linked to the Kentucky highway shootings that wounded five

LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Authorities were searching Sunday for a man who may have been linked to the shooting of nine vehicles and wounding of five people on a highway in rural southeastern Kentucky.

Although they said they could not yet name him a suspect in Saturday’s shootings along busy Interstate 75, authorities said they consider 32-year-old Joseph A. Couch a “person of interest” and were searching for him in a remote area of rugged and hilly terrain north of London, a community of about 8,000 people roughly 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.

“We’re going to go in and we’re going to find this guy,” Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters Sunday.

Authorities consider Couch, who is white, to be armed and dangerous, and they cautioned members of the public who might spot him not to approach him.

Acciardo said authorities were notified at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday about gunshots along the highway near exit 49. An individual who was “off that exit” fired multiple rounds into the northbound and southbound lanes, striking nine vehicles and wounding five people, he said.

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