Frank Gilliard Allison and William Joseph Hale via the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office
Two fathers in Florida were arrested following a road rage incident during which each man allegedly shot the other’s young daughter.
William Joseph Hale and Frank Gilliard Allison were both taken into custody on Saturday evening and charged with one count each of attempted second-degree murder, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper on Monday described the men’s behavior as “stupid” and “crazy” during a press briefing on the incident.
The “road rage incident” occurred a little after 6 p.m. on Saturday on U.S. 1 and resulted in multiple 911 calls being placed reporting “people being shot,” Leeper said. A witness allegedly told deputies that the 35-year-old Hale was driving a black Dodge Ram with five occupants inside while the 43-year-old Allison was driving a gray Nissan Murano with three occupants.
According to Leeper, the witness described the interaction between the two vehicles as a “cat and mouse game,” and said that he called 911 because both cars were driving so erratically that the witness knew something bad was going to happen.
Leeper said that investigators were able to determine that both Hale and Allison were “speeding, driving erratically, and brake-checking each other,” which he described as “getting in front of each other and applying the brakes,” in the moments before the shootings.
“At some point during the encounter, the driver of the Dodge Ram [Hale] got up alongside the Nissan and began shouting at the driver of the Nissan [Allison] to pull over. The right front passenger of the Nissan put her hand out the window and flipped the other vehicle off with her middle finger. The Nissan driver, Allison, rolled his window down to shout back at the other driver, and a plastic water bottle was thrown from the Dodge Ram into the Nissan,” Leeper said.
“The driver of the Nissan [Allison] then grabbed his Sig Saur 45-caliber automatic handgun and fired one shot at the other truck before driving away at a high rate of speed.”
The bullet went into the right rear passenger door of the Dodge Ram and struck Hale’s 5-year-old daughter in the leg. Allison told investigators that he fired the shot because he just wanted “to get out of the whole situation,” per Leeper.
After seeing the Nissan speed away, Hale realized his daughter had been shot and sped after the other vehicle. After catching up to the Nissan, Leeper said, Hale used a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun and began firing with his left hand out the driver’s side window. Hale allegedly told investigators he “shot everything that was in the magazine,” which was approximately seven or eight rounds.
At least three bullets struck the Nissan, with one hitting Allison’s 14-year-old daughter in the back, causing a collapsed lung.
Shortly after the second child was shot, both vehicles spotted an NCSO patrol car and pulled over. The two men began arguing and then fought until the deputy broke up the scuffle. Fire and Rescue units responded to the scene and transported both girls to a local hospital with non-life-threatening wounds. Their fathers were both booked into the Nassau County Jail.
“What is scarier than one crazy driver with a gun? Two crazy drivers with a gun,” Leeper said at the close of the press briefing. “Thankfully, no one was killed in this incident. But it could have been very easily turned out that way because two people were acting stupid and let their tempers get the best of them. There could have been two dead kids because of two stupid grown men.”
Watch the press conference below:
[images via Nassau County Sheriff’s Office]
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