MARION COUNTY, Fla. — A Marion County man is facing multiple felony charges after firing shots at a family driving down the road in a road rage incident.
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Deputies say Justin Brent Unrue, 28, was riding in his girlfriend’s car when they began tailgating the family that had just turned onto US 441 South outside of Belleview.
When the driver of the other car tapped on his brakes to get the duo to back off, Unrue pulled out a handgun and fired three shots.
“I told my wife to duck,” Aaron Derifield, the driver of that second car, recalled, “He’s hollering out on me, he’s gonna shoot me, he’s gonna end my life.”
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Thankfully for Derifield and his family, the shooter didn’t have good aim. Derifield’s car only received a small scratch on its rear bumper where a bullet ricocheted off.
Derifield’s wife snapped a picture of Unrue’s girlfriend’s license plate. When deputies caught up to them, Unrue’s girlfriend largely corroborated the story, and said she took his handgun away because he was acting erratically, the report said.
Unrue told deputies he only owned a shotgun and didn’t know how a handgun worked.
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Unrue is facing five felony charges and remains in jail without bond.
Derifield said Unrue is lucky the father didn’t have his own gun with him, was happy to let Unrue ruin his own life, and was thankful no one was hurt.
“Even if the man knew I had a kid in the car, it still doesn’t give you the right to try to end my life or take somebody else’s life away for something that was totally stupid,” he said. “He could’ve gone around me.”
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