A 5-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl were both wounded after their fathers shot at each other’s cars during an episode of road rage on a Florida highway, Newsweek reports.
William Joseph Hale, 35, and Frank Gilliard Allison, 43, were both driving with their families when the incident occurred, which Hale driving with five occupants inside his car and Allison with three people inside his.
“They were both speeding and driving recklessly northbound in Jacksonville and then into Nassau County on U.S. 1, brake checking and trying to cut each other off,” Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper told Newsweek. “They obviously didn’t like the way the other one was driving so they were both acting like idiots.”
A witness in the police report says the incident was like a “cat and mouse” game, adding that Hale and Allison were driving so erratically that the witness “knew something bad was going to happen.”
Once a plastic bottle was thrown into Allison’s car from Hale’s, Allison grabbed a handgun and fired at Hale’s car, piercing the back passenger door and striking Hale’s 5-year-old daughter in the leg.
Realizing his daughter was shot, Hale chased after Allison and fired several rounds, hitting Allison’s 14-year-old girl in the back and causing her lung to collapse. The two later pulled over and began to fight on the side of the highway. They were later arrested and charged with one count of attempted second-degree murder.
“I thought of the movie Dumb and Dumber,” said the sheriff. “How stupid could two people be to endanger their children, not only by driving recklessly, but by shooting a gun at another vehicle while engaged in a road rage incident is just insane.”
The 5-year-old had non-life-threatening injuries and the 14-year-old had critical injuries but is expected to survive.
