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.