PHILADELPHIA — A holiday traveler killed in an apparent road-rage shooting in Pennsylvania had reported some sort of road dispute with the pickup chasing him, state police said Sunday.
Timothy Davison, 28, of Poland, had called 911 as he crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania on Interstate 81 early Saturday.
He reported some sort of problem, such as one driver braking suddenly or cutting someone off, and said a gunman inside the pickup was now shooting at him, said Trooper Rob Hicks, a state police spokesman.
“There is mention of that (type problem) on the tape. I’m not sure what exactly transpired. It appears to be a random road-rage incident,” Hicks, who declined to elaborate about the 911 tape, told The Associated Press on Sunday.
No arrests have been made, and the FBI has joined the investigation.
“We have not found anything yet that would lead us to believe the victim and the suspect knew each other,” Hicks said.
Police believe the pickup driver rammed Davison’s car into a grassy median, before the driver or perhaps a passenger shot him at about 2:10 a.m. The shooting occurred about 10 miles north of Hagerstown, Md.
Investigators were looking for a small pickup truck, perhaps a blue Ford Ranger, with damage to the front quarter panel or driver’s side door. The pickup may have silver paint from Davison’s vehicle, a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero. They believe the pickup turned south on I-81 after the crime.
A driver told police that someone in a black pickup truck followed him recklessly in Monaghan Township at about 6:45 p.m., then fired several shots into his truck. One bullet hit the driver’s head rest.
Davison was shot in Antrim Township, and later pronounced dead at a York hospital. He had been driving home to Poland, Maine, after visiting relatives in Florida over the holidays, police said.
“It all seems a little surreal because it’s just incredible,” his father, Timothy Davison of Raymond, said Saturday afternoon in an interview with the Sun Journal. “He had gone to visit his grandfather and sister in Florida for the holidays.”
He said he spoke to his son at 4 p.m. Friday. At that time, the younger Davison was in Georgia. He liked driving at night.
Police told the elder Davison that the road rage attack began in Maryland.
“All they had told me is that he made the first 911 call when he was in Maryland,” the father said. “He told them there was a vehicle that was like a Ford Ranger shooting at him. When he cross the Maryland-Pennsylvania line, the call got dropped. When he got into (Pennsylvania), he called 911 again, but they told me that essentially, it looks like they ran his vehicle off the road into the median and shot him in his vehicle.”
The younger Davison worked as a fabricator in his father’s heavy industrial construction business, Engineered Construction Services in Raymond.
“He’s … very, very intelligent,” the senior Davison said of his son. “He was very good at what he did.”
The young man was not married and had no children.
“He had a girlfriend who is in Texas with the National Guard,” his father said.
His family included his mother, Theresa Allocca of Scarborough, and a stepmother, Lisa Davison of Raymond.
An autopsy was scheduled for Monday.
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