Two Florida men are each facing attempted murder charges after they allegedly shot at each other’s daughters during a road rage incident Saturday night.
William Joseph Hale, 35, and Frank Gilliard Allison, 43, were both arrested after a “cat and mouse” high-speed chase on Highway 1 in Nassau County, Florida.
The two men began arguing with each other on the road while driving aggressively and brake checking each other, according to Jacksonville radio station WOKV.
Things got so tense, a witness told Nassau County Sheriff’s deputies that “he knew something bad was going to happen.”
“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.”
Leeper told Law & Crime that at some point during the encounter, Hale, who was driving a Dodge Ram, drove up alongside Allison’s Nissan and began shouting at him to pull over.
That’s when the front passenger of the Nissan “put her hand out the window and flipped the other vehicle off with her middle finger.” As Allison rolled his window down to shout at Hale, someone from the Dodge Ram threw a plastic water bottle into his car.
“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,” according to Leeper.
The bullet entered the right rear passenger door of Hale’s Dodge Ram and struck his 5-year-old daughter in the leg.
After Hale realized his daughter had been shot, he sped up to the Nissan and using his Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun began firing at Allison’s car.
Three of Hale’s bullets struck Allison’s car, one hitting his 14-year-old in the back, causing a collapsed lung, according to WOKV.
After the second child was shot, Hale and Allison spotted an NCSO patrol car, pulled over, and argued face-to-face until a deputy broke up the scuffle.
Fire and rescue units took both girls to a local hospital where they were treated with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
Allison and Hale were booked into the Nassau County Jail on charges of felony attempted murder. Officers concluded in each of the arrest reports their “act was imminently dangerous and demonstrated a depraved mind without regard for human life.”
Both men are out on bail.