Note: We have a nasty escaped convict issue on-going that has resulted in two police being shot and wounded and a third was shot and killed. Two were ambushed and shot from behind with a high-caliper rifle, straight through the body armor. The convict is still on the loose south of Buffalo.
I was on my way back to Buffalo this afternoon from a project we have down at Cornell in Ithaca, riding on the Thruway. A NY State Trooper truck came roaring up from behind, but being the lawful citizen that I am, no worries. The moving van in the left lane wasn't moving over, so he flashed him with his hand-spotlight, while riding directly next to me. While taking this all in, I notice some flashing red lights on the other side of the Thruway a ways up (it's a big, divided super-highway). Then I realise it was a whole bunch of flashing lights and the Troopers next to us were getting a bit agitated at the van. As we come up on the lights, I see a pickup truck pulled over and three Trooper cars parked in a "V" behind it with at least six Troopers hiding behind the doors, guns pulled. A couple of shotguns and a lot of handguns. The truck next to us came to a screetching halt, but we continued on at 70 mph, so I saw no more. At least 4 more Trooper cars were seen barreling down to the scene.
There has been no more news on this that I can find, so I assume someone did something stupid and the whole thing rapidly escalated into a potentially disasterous mess. It's like a powderkeg waiting to go off around here, we have a sizable portion of the NYS Police force, NYS SWAT, Buffalo SWAT, Jamestown SWAT, Rochester SWAT, the FBI, Erie County Sherrifs and all of the local cops hunting this idiot down. There's roadblocks all over the Southtowns. So if you happen to be anywhere even near here, don't do anything stupid.