Schools locked down while police search for gunman
By TIM GULLA Ledger Staff Writer tim@gaffneyledger.com

A brazen daylight shooting incident outside a Wilkinsville Highway shopping plaza on Friday afternoon sent Gaffney police and Cherokee County Sheriff's Office in search of a gunman and put two Cherokee County schools in a precautionary lock down.

According to police, a man with a pistol in each hand fired shots at a truck on East Frederick Street in the vicinity of the Wilkinsville Highway intersection, and then fled on foot behind a shopping plaza.

No one was injured and the driver of the truck fled the area and waited for police at another location.

The suspect was described as black male, approximately 20 to 30 years old, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing about 165 pounds. He was wearing a Carhart hooded coat and blue jeans, witnesses told police.

After school resource officers received word of the situation, Cherokee County School District Superintendent Dr. Bill James said Ewing Middle School and Limestone Learning Center were placed in a precautionary lockdown. James said there never was any indication of a direct threat to the schools, students or employees. The lockdown was lifted a short time later.

Police scoured the area around the shopping plaza and nearby streets for at least an hour after the incident, looking for the suspect.

Police listed no possible motives for the shooting in an incident report. The driver of the truck, a 51-year-old resident of McKowns Mountain Road, told police he simply was pulling out of the parking lot when the gunman started firing.

Workers at a restaurant just a few paces from where the gunman allegedly fled on foot said they never heard gunshots and didn't know what had occurred.

(Staff writer Scott Powell contributed to this report.)