Posted on 2/22/2006 9:01:44 PM
by Sandra Kirk
A Texas man is shot during what the Hot Spring County Sheriff's Department is calling an incident of road rage.
It happened around 1:30 Wednesday morning on Interstate 30. The driver of an 18 wheeler fired shots striking the passenger inside another truck. He told police he feared for his life and that prompted him to shoot.
It was at mile marker 90 on Interstate 30 in Hot Spring County where truckers Roy Rhea and Charles McCallister both of Texas were driving along when they encountered another trucker Alton Spight of Mississippi. When they attempted to pass Speight on the left side things turned violent.
"As the 2 trucks pass there apparently was some gunfire that came from the other truck and apparently one of the rounds struck his co-driver up underneath the arm area," says Sheriff Ron Ball.
Spight's truck was stopped some 20 miles down the interstate in Clark County and when asked why the shooting occurred he told investigators that he felt threatened by the other truckers he thought they were trying to hi-jack him.
But Sheriff Ron Ball says there is no evidence to support this claim. Neither the victim, McCallister, nor the driver of his truck had a weapon and there was no communication between the two semis.
"There was no indication that the other truck had any type of weapon or was the other truck intending to do anything other than passing this particular truck," says ball.
Spight is being charged with unlawful use of a firearm and first degree battery. Meanwhile the victim is in a Little Rock Hospital in satisfactory condition. Sheriff Ball says they deal with instances of road rage but it's rare that someone ends up being shot.
Talk about road rage!
