2 'stupid grown men' shoot each other's daughters in 'crazy' Florida road-rage incident: Police

Two men in Florida have been charged with felony attempted murder after a road-rage incident turned violent.

Last Saturday evening, William Joseph Hale, 35, and Frank Gilliard Allison, 43, were both driving northbound along Highway 1 just outside Jacksonville, families in tow, when they began to engage in what one witness described as "a cat and mouse game" of one-upmanship. Police said that Hale, who drove a black Dodge truck, and Allison, who drove a Nissan Murano, began "speeding and driving recklessly," occasionally "brake checking" one another and otherwise operating their vehicles in a way that endangered themselves and others.

At some point during the "game," Hale in the truck began to signal to the Nissan to pull over, witnesses said. In response, Jessica Allison, wife of Frank, reportedly rolled down the passenger window of the Nissan to give the truck the middle finger, at which point, someone in the truck allegedly seized the opportunity and threw a water bottle at or into the Nissan.

That's when the situation really escalated, reports suggest.

Frank Allison then "grabbed his Sig Sauer 45-caliber automatic handgun and fired one shot at the other truck before driving away at a high rate of speed," said Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper. The shot entered one of the rear doors of the truck and reportedly struck Hale's 5-year-old daughter in the leg.

Once Hale realized that his daughter had been shot, he allegedly returned fire, shooting "everything that was in the magazine" of his Glock 43 9mm semi-automatic handgun, approximately "seven or eight rounds," police said he admitted. Police said that at least three of those rounds hit the Nissan, and one of them struck Allison's 14-year-old daughter in the back, causing a collapsed lung.

The drivers then reportedly spotted a police cruiser, pulled over, and began fighting one another, and deputies had to separate them before eventually placing them both under arrest. Both wives had also reportedly spoken to 911 operators during the incident. At least one but likely both girls were treated at UF Health Downtown hospital for injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

"What’s scarier than one crazy driver with a gun? Two crazy drivers with a gun," Leeper quipped.

"Thankfully, no one was killed in this incident," he continued, "but it could have very easily turned out that way because two people were acting stupid and let their tempers get the best of them.

"There could have been two dead kids because of two stupid grown men."

Both men were booked into Nassau County Jail on second-degree attempted murder and released on $150,000 bond. Police believe that the two men and their families did not know one another prior to the incident.