Via Knox News:
Investigators are running down leads in an early Sunday shootout between a security officer at Watt Bar Nuclear Plant and an individual who fired multiple shots from a boat on Chickamauga Lake near Spring City, Tenn., property.
A spokesman for the FBI, which is handling the case because of the sensitivity of the nuclear plant, was scant on details and declined to say how promising those leads are.
“The reason we’re involved is because of the critical infrastructure, and we want to make sure it’s not something that’s related to the plant,” said spokesman Marshall Stone. “Obviously people do use the water out there, and there could be hunting or shooting or other things that don’t include an attack on the plant.”
The security officer encountered the suspect at about 2 a.m. Sunday in a clearly marked restricted area several hundred yards from the site’s protected area, which houses the reactor and power production facilities, but still within the plant property.
When the officer confronted the person, “the individual fired on the officer, striking the officer’s vehicle,” said Jim Hopson, a spokesman for Tennessee Valley Authority. “The officer returned fire, and as the officer was calling for backup, the individual fled the scene.”