William Joseph Hale (Nassau County Sheriff's Office)
A man is facing charges after two girls were shot and injured when their fathers were involved in a road-rage confrontation on a highway in Florida.
William Hale was charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder, three counts of aggravated assault and one count of shooting into a vehicle, online court records show. Hale is scheduled to be arraigned on April 20, records show.
Charges were dropped against a second man arrested in the case, records show. The charges were dropped under the Stand Your Ground law for self-defense, Jacksonville, Florida, station news4jax reported.
In announcing the arrests in October, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said in a news conference, "Sometimes we see people acting stupid and doing dumb things out on the highway.
"They sometimes let their emotions get the best of them, and they don't really think about the consequences of their actions or what could happen as a result of their stupidity."
Officials said the shooting went down after 6 p.m. on Oct. 8 when Hale, in a Dodge Ram, drove alongside the second driver, in a Nissan Murano, rolled down a window, and began shouting at the driver to pull over, authorities said.
A witness called 911, reporting a black Ram pickup truck with five occupants and a gray Murano with three occupants involved in a road-rage incident, the sheriff said. A 911 caller described it as a "cat-and-mouse game," the sheriff said. The two were brake-checking, getting in front of each other and hitting the brakes.
The witness said both drivers were driving so erratically that he called 911 because he thought something bad would happen, the sheriff said.
At some point, Hale got up alongside the Murano, rolled his passenger window down, and began shouting at the driver to pull over, the sheriff said.
The front passenger of the Murano put her arm out the passenger window and flipped her middle finger, the sheriff said.
A plastic water bottle was thrown from the Ram into the Murano.
The Murano driver then grabbed his 45-caliber semi-automatic handgun and fired one shot at Hale's truck, police said. The bullet entered the pickup truck's right-side rear passenger door and struck a 5-year-old girl in the right leg.
That driver, the sheriff said, said he fired his weapon "to get out of the whole situation."
The sheriff said Hale heard a loud "Pow!" but didn't think anything of it until everyone started freaking out in the back seat.
Then Hale realized his daughter was shot.
As the Murano was leaving, Hale sped up to get closer to the Murano and began firing several shots from his Glock 9 mm semi-automatic handgun out of the driver's window. Hale fired seven or eight rounds, the sheriff said.
At least three bullets struck the Murano. One of the bullets went through the rear of the vehicle and hit a 14-year-old girl in the back, collapsing her lung.
As both vehicles were speeding north on US-1, they saw a police patrol car and stopped. The drivers got out, arguing and fighting with each other.
The deputy broke up the fight and called paramedics, who took both juveniles to a hospital.
The two men were arrested.
"Now, what is scarier than one crazy driver with a gun — two crazy drivers with a gun," the sheriff said. "Thankfully, no one was killed in this incident, but it could have very easily turned out that way because two people were acting stupid."
Law&Crime's Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
