Friday, October 4, 2013

Bullets Fly After Random Driveway Turnaround



Have you ever found yourself feeling a little, well, infringed upon, when a random driver uses your driveway to turn around? Conversely, have you ever felt like maybe it wasn’t so cool to be turning around in a random home owner’s driveway? Does it feel a little like trespassing on private property? Especially because you didn’t exactly ask permission?

You may have had good reason for feeling a bit uneasy. It seems that on July 21, 2013, a 72-year-old woman shot at a car for turning around in her driveway. This was in Hawkins County on Bays Mountain Road in Rogersville, Tennessee, near Knoxville. The good news? No one died.

Five Children

The car’s passengers included a couple from Virginia and their five children.
According to the arrest report (you didn’t really think she’d get away with it, did you?) it was a peaceful Sunday and Oscar Scott was looking for a scenic route by which to take his family back to Virginia. Just after his car crossed the Hawkins County line, Margie Rhea Ramey began shooting. In speaking with the local Kingsport Times-News, Mr. Scott reported that one of the bullets hit the running board on the passenger side of the car. This was a mere couple of feet from where his five children were seated, in the back of the car.

(We’re thinking the sight of that car may be traumatic to the kids in future. The Scotts may want to consider a donation to Kars forKids. They probably need a bigger car anyway, what with all those kids.)

She Confessed

Naturally, Hawkins County deputies arrived on the scene to arrest Ms. Ramey. She confessed she’d fired the shots because she just hates it when people tear up her driveway.
The upshot? Ramey was charged with 7 counts of felony reckless endangerment. So the next time you’re thinking about using a random person’s driveway to turn your car around, you may want to rethink things a bit.