JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The State Attorney’s Office has filed charges against a man six months after he was involved in a road rage incident that injured two children in October.
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.
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The driver of an SUV, who exchanged the first shot, was also arrested and charged with attempted murder, but the State Attorney’s Office dropped the charge.
The incident started in Duval County and stretched for several miles on U.S. 1 near Callahan. According to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, Hale and the other driver were driving erratically. Hale was driving a black Dodge Ram pickup truck with five occupants inside and the driver of a gray Nissan Murano sport utility vehicle had three occupants.
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At some point, according to the NCSO, Hale got up alongside the Murano, rolled a window down and began shouting at the Nissan driver to pull over. Hale’s wife then rolled down a window and made an obscene gesture, and the SUV driver rolled down the window to shout back at the other driver when a plastic water bottle was thrown from the Ram into the Nissan, according to NCSO.
A witness told deputies that Hale was the aggressor and said that he tried to run the other driver off the road.
The sheriff’s office said the Nissan driver then grabbed his .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun and fired one shot at the Ram — which went through the rear passenger door on the right side and struck Hale’s 5-year-old daughter — before speeding off.
According to the sheriff, Hale realized she was shot as the Murano sped away, so he sped closer to the Murano and began firing several shots from his Glock 43 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun — one of which went through the rear of the vehicle and struck the Nissan driver’s 14-year-old daughter in the back, causing her to suffer a collapsed lung.
The State Attorney’s office said it dropped the charge against the Nissan driver because it was concluded that he acted in self-defense under the Stand Your Ground law, as throwing an object at a moving vehicle is a felony offense.
Hale is scheduled to be arraigned on April 20.