CHP Shoots Suspect Following Hit and Run: Cops

The Caldecott Tunnel commute slowed to a snail's pace Friday afternoon as police investigated an officer-involved shooting.

The eastbound Wilder Road exit, east of the tunnel, from eastbound Highway 24 in Orinda was closed for hours, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The Contra Costa Times was the first to report that one person was shot by an off-duty police officer.

Our chopper flew over the scene and found more than a dozen police cars on the Wilder Road exit.

Law enforcement officials later said a CHP officer shot a suspect in a hit-and-run collision.

A downed motorcycle that caught fire was reported to the CHP at about 3:40 p.m. near the Claremont Avenue offramp in Oakland, the CHP said. That motorcycle was related to a shooting and police incident that occurred a short time later further down the highway in Orinda, CHP Officer Sam Morgan said.

Contra Costa County sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said a CHP officer investigating a hit-and-run found a car that matched the suspected vehicle at about 4 p.m. on Wilder Road just off the highway. Officials have released few details, but Lee said that at some point in contacting the driver of that car the officer fired his gun at the driver, striking him in the torso.

The driver was taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Lee said. Officials have not disclosed his condition. The motorcyclist was transported to a hospital but is expected to survive, according to the CHP.

Eastbound lanes of Highway 24 were closed for about two hours during the two investigations on each side of the Caldecott Tunnel, backing traffic up at the height of this evening's rush hour. The CHP, the sheriff's office and the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office are jointly investigating the officer-involved shooting, Lee said.