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Alpine Junction attracted a sizable law-enforcement contingent.

Shooters snarl Junction traffic, turn out to be boys 10 and 12

ALPINE JUNCTION, Aug. 20 -- Sheriff's Department personnel and State Police raced to Alpine Junction Tuesday afternoon upon the report of two shootings that shattered side windows in vehicles on Route 13 -- a northbound tractor-trailer and a southbound pickup truck.

Nine members of the Sheriff's Office -- including Sheriff Bill Yessman, Undersheriff Breck Spaulding and Lt. Craig Gallow -- were on the scene, along with a contingent of State Police that grew to four vehicles. Also en route were a State Police SORT (Special Operations Response Team) and a State Police helicopter.

Neither the SORT nor the chopper made it, because the response was called off when the shooters were apprehended by Gallow. They turned out to be two boys, ages 10 and 12, firing BB guns at passing traffic on Route 13 north of the intersection with Rt. 224. Nobody was injured in the incidents.

The two boys, whose names will not be released, were remanded to their parents and will be charged as juveniles -- probably with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, said Sheriff Yessman. They might end up in Family Court.

The incident -- while it turned out "to be fairly minor," said Yessman -- had the investigating officers who raced to the scene on edge for a couple of reasons. One was the continued hunt for Southport attempted armed robbery suspect Robert Rouille, who reportedly has relatives in the vicinity of Cayuta, which is near Alpine Junction.

“Some people thought it might be Rouille,” said Yessman, “but he’d have to be the dumbest criminal in the world to call that kind of attention to himself, and get surrounded.”

And looming in the back of Yessman’s mind and that of Spaulding was the Burdett shooting in October 2011 in which a man armed with a rifle fired at passing vehicles -- including Sheriff Yessman's -- and struck the hood of a car driven by Spaulding.

“I ducked this time,” Spaulding said with a smile Tuesday after the two boys were apprehended. “Yeah, that was on our minds.”

“It’s why we didn’t send a car up the road to see,” added Yessman, pointing north on Rt. 13. “We didn’t know what we had.”

As deputies arrived on the scene -- responding to a call at about 1:30 p.m. -- customers at the Dandy store on the northeast corner of the Junction were told not to leave the store on a northerly route on Rt. 13, and to stay away from windows. Yessman set up headquarters outside the Harley Davidson store across the street from the Dandy. State police soon prevented traffic from going north on 13 -- redirecting it east to County Rt. 12 in Cayuta and then back onto 13 north of the shooting area. Tompkins County officers blocked southbound traffic below Rt. 12.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gallow investigated by going east and then back out toward 13. He spotted the boys on an All Terrain Vehicle near where Smith Road meets Rt. 13, stopped them, and interviewed them. Yessman said they didn’t have the BB guns with them by that time, but that Gallow determined they had dropped the guns at a home where one of the boys lived.

“You plan for the worst,” said Yessman. “Thank God it turned out to be something fairly minor. This is how you hope something like this will turn out. But these kids cost a lot of money in terms of time and manpower."

In the aftermath, the two vehicles that sustained broken windows were up the road at Choice Auto Glass, a business along Rt. 13 within sight of the incidents. The tractor-trailer -- a UPS vehicle -- was parked alongside 13 while a Choice worker cleared the shattered glass out of the truck cab. The pickup was being worked on nearby.

The UPS driver, who had been northbound to Syracuse, said he didn’t hear the shot, but that the BB striking and shattering the window was “loud. It got my attention.” It also blew some glass dust “onto my arm. But no big deal.”

Photos in text:

From top: Sheriff Yessman, left, and other officials at the Harley Davidson store; the pickup truck, which lost its driver-side window; and the tractor-trailer, which lost its passenger-side window.