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Man arrested for shooting at SUV on U.S. 61
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A 71-year-old Dickeyville man was arrested Friday after an incident in which a shot was fired at a vehicle on U.S. 61 north of Dickeyville Thursday afternoon.

A 40-year-old Lancaster woman was driving north on 61 near the Platte River bridge Thursday around 5:30 p.m. when she encountered a forest-green Ford F-150 pickup truck parked on the west side of 61 just north of the bridge.

According to the Grant County Sheriff’s Department, as she approached the truck she saw the barrel of a rifle come out of the driver’s side window, and as she passed a shot rang out. The truck then casually left heading south, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

A bullet hole was discovered in the driver’s-side door just above the window. The bullet was recovered in the frame of the vehicle, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

The woman had four of her children, ages 18, 13, 10 and 6 in the vehicle. No one in the vehicle was injured.
Thomas Welp, 71, Dickeyville, was arrested by sheriff’s deputies Friday around 3 p.m. He has been charged with recklessly endangering safety, and additional charges are pending.

Welp told sheriff’s deputies he was shooting at a red-tail hawk in a tree and was unaware that he had struck a vehicle. The state Department of Natural Resources recovered the body of a hawk at the scene.

The sheriff’s department news release noted that “though there have been some changes to the regulations on possession and transportation of weapons it is still illegal and highly dangerous to discharge a firearm from inside a vehicle and within 50 feet from the center line of any roadway.”