Friday, December 26, 2003

This Wasn't Any "Road Rage" Incident (Pt. 1 of 2)

Via the ever-alert Atrios, I came across this story about a Christmas Day shooting in southern Mississippi. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger picked up essentially the same story with a similar headline, apparently based on the Mississippi Highway Patrol's official statement: Road rage suspected in coast killing (12/26/03).

The basic story is this. A man Patel Ghanshyam came to Biloxi, MS, with four of his family members for some gambling at the casinos that are now the Mississippi Gulf Coast's biggest tourist attraction. Early Christmas morning, they left in their car headed home on Highway I-10. The Clarion-Ledger relates the version given by Highway Patrol sergeant Joe Gazzo:

Soon after they merged onto the highway, a small, blue imported car with a loud muffler came up alongside the family, repeatedly swerving close to them, then getting in front of them and slowing down.

"Harassing them with actions of the car, you could say," Gazzo said.

Gazzo said witnesses told investigators that one of the occupants of the harassing car then got on a cell phone and apparently called another vehicle, a brown sport utility vehicle, which pulled alongside the Atlanta family and opened fire with an automatic weapon.

Gazzo said the family's vehicle was hit eight times. He said one of the shots hit Ghanshyam under the arm, killing him instantly.

This ain't no "road rage" killing. It might be some organized-crime related thing, or a personal grudge. Or some militia-nut political-terrorist killing. Living in California, the road-rage capital of the world, I'm very aware of the potential for deadly violence in that situation. But I've never, ever heard of a case of "road rage" where the violence was done by anyone other than the driver. In this case, the first hostile driver phoned a second vehicle who pulled up with an automatic weapon.

(Cont. in Part 2)

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