A 6-year-old was shot in the arm and an 11-year-old suffered minor injuries from shattered glass after gunfire from another vehicle struck the family's car on Interstate 10 in Baker County on Sunday. Investigators say the family may have been followed, and the vehicle that fired the shots has not been identified.
According to the Baker County Sheriff's Office, the family had just left a residence in Macclenny and was traveling east on I-10 toward Jacksonville when the shooting happened. The 6-year-old was struck in the arm, while the 11-year-old was hurt by glass that shattered inside the vehicle during the gunfire. Both children were treated for their injuries and are recovering, the sheriff's office said.
Investigators told the outlet they believe the family may have been followed before the shots were fired, though they have not identified the other vehicle involved. No further details about the shooter or a motive have been released.
Anyone With Information Is Asked to Come Forward
The sheriff's office is asking anyone with information to call 904-259-9218. Tips can also be submitted anonymously to First Coast Crime Stoppers at 866-845-8477.
Part of a Troubling Pattern on Jacksonville-Area Highways
The shooting adds to a string of gunfire incidents on Jacksonville-area interstates involving children in the car, even when the young passengers weren't struck. In September 2025, a man was killed and three adults were wounded when someone fired into their vehicle on eastbound I-10 near the I-95 split, according to News4JAX, which reported that a dark-colored car had approached the victims' vehicle before words were exchanged and gunfire erupted. A child in that car was not hurt. The outlet also reported a father's not-guilty plea in a separate case tied to an I-10 road-rage shooting last September that killed one person and wounded three others.
Other Florida cases have ended with children directly wounded. ABC News reported that a 5-year-old was shot in the chest and the child's mother was shot in the hand after a gunman followed their car, an incident police said followed an altercation between children in an apartment complex parking lot; no arrests had been announced. In Ocala, WFLA reported that a mother and her 5-year-old were shot after a vehicle behind them opened fire and struck their car multiple times while they were driving south; both were listed in stable condition at a nearby hospital.
Gunfire on the Road Has Climbed for Years
Shootings between drivers have become sharply more common nationwide. The number of people shot in road-rage incidents rose more than 400 percent between 2014 and 2023, from 92 to 481, according to an analysis by The Trace of Gun Violence Archive data. Over that decade, 3,095 people were shot in road-rage incidents and 777 of them died, with the annual number of shootings growing by an average of 23 percent a year. By 2023, someone was being shot in a road-rage incident on average every 18 hours, compared with once every four days in 2014, the same analysis found.
Locally, Gun Violence Archive data cited by News4JAX in a separate report showed 116 people killed nationwide in gun-involved road-rage incidents during the first 10 months of 2024, up from 109 over the same stretch in 2023.
No arrests have been announced in connection with the Baker County shooting, and investigators have not said whether the incident is being treated as road rage or linked to any specific motive. The sheriff's office continues to seek information from the public as the search for the vehicle involved continues.
