ATLANTA — Police are investigating the death of a woman hit and killed while running across Interstate 75.
The crash shut down the northbound lanes of the interstate at Cleveland Avenue in southeast Atlanta for hours Thursday morning.
Traffic backed up for miles through south Fulton and Clayton counties during the heart of the morning rush hour as cars funneled down to one lane while police investigated the incident.
Police told Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach that the victim was hit by multiple cars, including one with a broken windshield and smashed front fender.
Investigators said she didn't come from a car.
The woman was known to hang around the area and people who knew who her say they think she was running from someone at a nearby gas station.
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Witnesses told Gehlbach off camera that the woman tried to run from the on-ramp, across the northbound lanes, but had not made it to the center median wall when she was hit.
"We're unsure how many motorists actually struck the individual, but we have several cars that stopped. We also have secondary accidents with people trying to avoid what happened with the initial incident," Capt. Andrew Senzer, with the Atlanta Police Department, told Gehlbach.
Atlanta police motorcycle officers responded after a couple hours to get traffic moving off the ramp and back onto to I-75.
Near the end of the morning rush, around 8:15 a.m., police cleared the scene and HERO units opened all northbound lanes of the interstate at once.