Police surprised by University Place shootout

Investigators are befuddled by a shootout in a quiet University Place neighborhood Tuesday.

“It’s very out of character for that neighborhood,” Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said Wednesday. “We have no idea what this was about.”

He gave this account:

About 1:35 p.m., 911 dispatchers were flooded with phone calls reporting shots fired at 27th Street West and Locust Avenue.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived quickly but found no sign of a victim. They recovered 10 bullet casings from the scene.

Witnesses told investigators a man in the street fired three rounds at two men in a car. The two men allegedly returned fire with seven rounds.

Nobody appeared to be struck.

The man ran off, tripping briefly in the intersection, but apparently because of his baggy pants, not a wound. The car, a newer silver Buick with chrome wheels, sped away after the passenger and driver changed places.

The men likely knew each other and the encounter did not appear to be random, Troyer said.

Detectives were checking area hospitals for shooting victims and looking for the Buick.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Police surprised by University Place shootout."