Drivers heading east on the Turner Turnpike toward Luther hit a wall of flashing lights early Thursday morning, as troopers shut the highway down for hours while they investigated a semi-trailer cab with its side window blown out. No injuries were reported.
The eastbound lanes heading into Luther stayed closed for hours during the overnight investigation before finally reopening. KOCO reported a road-rage shooting in which someone driving an SUV fired shots at the semi, shattering a window.
The Search for the SUV Driver
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol was searching for the person driving the SUV, who had not been identified.
Oklahoma law treats pointing a firearm at another person as a felony, with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Any charge in this case would depend on investigators’ findings and prosecutors’ decisions, and no suspect has been identified. The state’s firearm-pointing statute provides the legal background, not a determination of what happened in this incident.
What is clear is the toll on traffic. The turnpike's eastbound lanes near Luther were effectively out of commission for a chunk of the early morning hours, a familiar inconvenience for commuters who rely on that stretch of highway to move between the Oklahoma City area and points east.
The closure came on the 86-mile Turner Turnpike.
An Earlier Crash on the Turner Turnpike
This is not the only headache the Turner Turnpike near Luther has caused drivers. A separate deadly crash was reported near Luther on May 8, 2018.
Earlier reporting from KFOR also described a multi-vehicle crash involving three cars and a semi on the Turner Turnpike near Luther on a Tuesday afternoon, which similarly forced a closure of the eastbound lanes just east of Luther Road before they reopened. KFOR's report text and displayed headline both state that two people were killed.
A separate Oklahoma road-rage shooting case shows how such encounters can lead to serious federal consequences, though its circumstances were different. In 2020, a Lawton man received a 10-year federal sentence after firing at another vehicle on the H.E. Bailey Turnpike; prosecutors said he possessed the gun while subject to a domestic-violence protective order. The case does not predict what charges, if any, could follow the Luther shooting, but it illustrates the potential stakes when gunfire enters a road dispute. The federal case ended in a 120-month sentence.
The overnight shutdown near Luther followed a road-rage shooting. The Turner Turnpike has since reopened.
