[rthorne57]

OK, way too many responses from this...

First off, I wouldn't openly post on a forum a completely twisted story for no reason. What would I or anyone have to gain from that? I could have easily posted that "I accidently cut him off and he got pissed off and he showed a gun so I defended myself". What I posted was what happened and shouldn't be judged. I was younger and dumber at the time and have never been put in that situation. If I'm 30yards away from you and come charging full speed, are you going to run away? Scream for help? Most likely not. It's easy to say what someone should do in a situation from the outside. I wasn't thinking about them reporting me to the police, let alone a felony charge.

That being said, I spared the details to be brief and to the point; it's just in my nature. I never said "road rage for NO reason", I clearly said "some UNKNOWN reason"...which is another way of saying, I don't know what I did to piss this guy off.

All I recall is that I was following him, playing follow the leader, through the slower traffic on the highway. This "highway" is a 4 lane country road, not to be confused with a major freeway. Once we passed the other cars he started to slow down so I changed lanes to pass him. Upon passing him he yelled something at me, which was inaudible. I looked back at him and he's still yelling, but I ignore it and press on. Maybe he didn't like how close I was following him? That's all I can come up with. He speeds up next to me and starts cussing to get my attention, so I just rolled up my windows. Half a mile later of the same nonesence is where I came to the red light intersection and the rest you know. There is no exit ramp, just a side of the road or attempt to make a u-turn. At the time that we were stopped, my focus was on the door flying open - not waiting to see if a gun could be in his hand which by then it would be too late for me.

I work a mile away from the intersection and at 9am in the morning there's only 2-3 cars in the parking lot on 500 acres of land, which is clearly visible from the road. Doesn't take Columbo to spot my black truck on 20" wheels. The cops come from in-town which means if my truck didn't pass them then I pulled over somewhere. I talked with the police and was honest and told them I withdrew my weapon, and they jumped to the conclusion that draw= point at. They told 2 other cops that showed up, "yeah he admitted it, he's going to jail now". I had to repeatedly say I didn't point it at them but we were going around in circles and they would hardly give me a chance to talk without butting in or another cop threatening me. A third officer showed up and actually took me into custody after I explained to him what happened all over again.

One thing I should have made clear is that the 2 males never had to appear in court, thus never has to testify. My lawyer got a copy of the arrest report and what screwed me is that the 2 arresting officers wrote that I admitted pointing my gun at them and only the 3rd officer (who took my into custody) wrote that I said I didn't. My lawyer, who was an ex DA, laid it all out for me and said "Look, I've won some I should have lost and lost some I should have won. We can go to trial but the report doesn't look good and it matches what the 2 "victims" said". He said he would talk with the DA to get it reduced because after weighing my options I could easily lose in the trial which means 2 years in federal prison with Lord knows how much in fines and community service hours. The thing that scared me the most was having the felony conviction on my record. Goodbye decent jobs, goodbye apartments, goodbye school, and couldn't ever think about a career in the military; I'm screwed for life. I swallowed my pride, plead guilty and took the lesser charge.

@ Noquarter - the constables coming running in like they were in a GD shoot house playing wannabe SWAT. Stick up for them if you want; they over reacted.


I must have told this story 15 times to close friends and family, the police, lawer, investigator, and recruiter and honestly wish I could have reacted different, but the fact is I didn't. It was a stupid mistake and now I'm paying for it. I think about it all the time and I missed out on too many opportunities because of my misdemeanor. Frankly, I don't need to be judged or labeled, I just wanted to share that story. I don't care if you all can't make sense of it.