One of the men accused of shooting a girl during a road rage altercation with another driver will not face charges, Florida law enforcement officials say.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, a 5-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl were both shot on US 1 in Callahan, Florida, in October 2022, during a road rage incident between the children’s fathers. The children were in separate vehicles, riding with their fathers when the altercation broke out.
Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper identified the two shooters as William Hale (pictured left), 36, and Frank Allison (pictured right), 43.
Both men were initially charged with attempted murder but Allison’s charge was dropped under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Prosecutors determined that Hale was at fault after he first threw a bottle at Hale’s car and tried to run him off of the road, prompting Allison to fire a single shot at his car, which struck Hale’s 5-year-old child in the leg.
Rather than taking his wounded daughter to a hospital, Hale allegedly pursued Allison, emptying a clip from his Glock 43 9mm handgun as he fired out his driver’s window. One of the bullets hit Allison’s daughter in the back, causing a collapsed lung.
According to the State Attorney’s Office, “both children are expected to make a full recovery,” First Coast News reports, while Leeper called the men “stupid” following the incident.
“There could have been two dead kids because of two stupid grown men,” Leeper said.
Both parties stopped for law enforcement, according to police, but they “stared each other down,” Fox News Digital reports, before their arrests.
Charging documents indicate that Hale is accused of driving his “vehicle in a reckless threatening or intimidating manner, which created a well-founded fear in Frank Allison that violence was imminent.”
The documents stated that Hale threw “a stone or other hard substance” at Allison, which was later determined to be a water bottle. Prosecutors said Allison’s response was justified under the Stand Your Ground law since Allison “reasonably believe[d] that using or threatening to use deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.”
A witness told police that Hale chased after Allison in a “cat and mouse” game, the documents state.
Allison, who was driving a Nissan Murano, “was clearly attempting to get away from the [Dodge] Ram,” driven by Hale, the documents also read, with “the Ram forcing the Murano partially off the road on several occasions.”
Hale is scheduled for a court arraignment on April 20. He’s charged with aggravated assault, attempted murder, and shooting or throwing deadly missiles.
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[Feature Photo: William Hale and Frank Allison/Nassau County Sheriff’s Office]
