Florida Parking Lot Rampage

[IowaStatePhiPsi]

So.. when will the media blame this on Grand Theft Auto?
Will we attempt to ban SUVs and parking lots?
Does Florida have the death penalty? She should get it for this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in659379.shtml

Parking Lot Rampage In Florida
ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida, Dec. 7, 2004

Authorities say a Florida woman ran over two teenage brothers after they accidentally hit her sport utility vehicle with a golf ball they were bouncing in a parking lot, critically injuring one of the boys.

According to St. John's County sheriff's Deputy Greg Suchy, Isiah Grayer, 14, and his 16-year-old twin stepbrothers, Justin and Jamel Marshman, were bouncing the golf ball in a shopping center parking lot Sunday afternoon when it went astray and struck a sport utility vehicle driven by Kathy Feaganes Allen, 47.

Suchy said no damage was done, and the boys apologized and began to walk away. He says Allen started to drive away, but suddenly made a U-turn, ran over a median and hit Grayer, causing severe injuries, and then hit Justin Marshman.

"I tried to run. I blacked out. I woke up bleeding," Justin Marshman told The Florida Times-Union.

Police say she then went after Jamel - who broke into a run and managed to avoid being hit as the SUV crossed two medians, struck a utility pole and stalled out in a ditch.

Witness Russell McPhee said Allen accelerated to hit the boys.

"She charged them," he said. "This was the most deliberate act."

"Thank God for the light post," McPhee told CBS News Affiliate WTEV-TV, "because that saved the third boy."

McPhee said he yelled at Allen to stay where she was when she got out of her car.

"After she ran them down, she got out of the car and lit a cigarette like a movie star," he said. "She watched all three of (the boys) just lying there."

Allen then borrowed a cell phone from a bystander - Terry Gerspch - to call her husband. Gerspch says Allen seemed unfazed.

"She was as calm as anything," she said. "She said the boys were throwing rocks at her car."

McPhee said Jamel, the uninjured brother, ran over to Allen's car and confronted her: "He just kept asking 'Why? Why did you do this?'"

Grayer is in critical condition at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville. Justin Marshman was treated for non-life threatening injuries at Flagler Hospital.

Brent Woolbright of the St. Johns County Public Defender's Office said he has been assigned to Allen's case Monday and is trying to get all the facts.

"I talked to her, and her story is a little different that what was reported," said Woolbright.

Allen told the court she has mental problems. A judge Monday ordered her held without bail on three counts of attempted murder.