The murder of 6-year-old Aiden Leos on an Orange County freeway is a disturbing and sobering story. The series of events that led to the boy's death presents an object lesson in why drivers should never, ever overreact when they perceive they are being disrespected on the road. Make this your mantra, friends: Just let it go. Just let it go.
On May 21, 2021, Aiden's mother, Joanna Cloonan, left her home in Costa Mesa to take her son to school at Calvary Chapel Preschool in Yorba Linda. They were driving north on Highway 55 in their Chevy Sonic, with Aiden strapped into the back seat of the car.
What happened that morning was stupid, unnecessary and embarrassing, and a terrible reminder that fighting while driving can have tragic and ruinous consequences.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
According to the Orange County Register, a Volkswagen Golf driven by Wynne Lee accelerated behind Cloonan in the carpool lane, accelerated around her and then returned to the lane in front of Cloonan's car, cutting off Cloonan and checking her brakes. “Lee then made a peace sign that the mother took as not genuine,” the report says.
Instead of letting it pass, Cloonan angrily stopped next to the VW and turned his back on the couple. Big mistake.
Lee's passenger, Marcus Eriz, reached for his gun in the back seat.
“He remembered Eriz smiling at him from the passenger seat,” wrote my colleague Christopher Goffard, “and then he heard a loud sound as he drove away. “It was a single bullet from Eriz's gun, which went through the trunk and through the body of his son.”
The bullet hit Aiden in the back, passing through his liver and lung, before piercing his heart and exiting his body. He bled to death on the shoulder of the highway while his mother cried hysterically and a CHP officer tried to save him.
On Thursday, Eriz, 26, was rightfully convicted of second-degree murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. The jury took only two hours to decide. He faces up to 40 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced April 12.
Lee, his girlfriend, will be tried later on lesser charges.
The almost indescribable irony at the center of this case is what Eriz told investigators about why he carried a gun in the first place: “People have been acting crazy on the freeway.”
A self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.
Last March, the nonprofit group Everytown for Gun Safety reported that road rage “shooting deaths and injuries continue to pile up” despite the surge in gun violence that occurred during the height of the pandemic. COVID had subsided. The group’s research and policy arm analyzed gun violence data and determined that the number of road rage injuries and gun violence incidents has increased each year since 2018. “These incidents translate to a person receiving shot and injured or killed in a road rage incident. in 2022 every 16 hours.” Generally speaking, states with the laxest gun laws have the highest rate of gun-related road rage incidents.
In May, a young man described by his friends as a music-loving Jordanian surfer died in Marina del Rey after getting out of his car at a traffic light to talk to a driver who had cut off the vehicle in which he was traveling with a friend. The driver suffered a hole in his chest and, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, there has been no arrest.
In December, 4-year-old Gor Adamyan was killed in Lancaster after his parents, on their way to the grocery store, accidentally cut off a car whose driver began following the family and harassed them before shooting at them. the car. Gor died in what has been described as a “rain of bullets.” The alleged gunman, Byron Burkhart, 29, has been charged with murder, attempted murder and shooting into an occupied car. If he is convicted, he faces life in prison.
Anyone who has ever gotten behind the wheel in city or highway traffic has experienced road rage at some point, whether it's their own or someone else's.
“This could happen to any of us,” Orange County Prosecutor Todd Spitzer said in commenting on Eriz's conviction. “We all drive on the highways in Southern California. We've all gotten angry at other drivers; Other drivers have gotten angry with us. I have thrown some gestures around me.”
If I'm honest, so am I. I do some of my best swearing behind the wheel. I may occasionally drive aggressively, for example, accelerating to pass a driver who decides to speed up rather than let me in when I am changing lanes. I also constantly have undoubtedly imaginary power struggles with other drivers, which embarrasses me. I sometimes catch myself wondering how younger, less mature and/or testosterone-driven drivers control themselves when I, an older and presumably calmer driver, can get so nervous behind the wheel.
But I don't drive to punish. I have never stopped in front of someone to teach them a lesson. I never rolled down the window to yell at anyone. I would never risk it because, like Eriz said, people go crazy on the highway.
AAA, the membership organization for drivers, offers tips to avoid road rage problems: Don't make eye contact with angry drivers; do not make hand gestures; do not respond to aggression with aggression; and stay in your car if physically confronted.
By far his best advice is this: “Be tolerant and forgiving. Let's assume it's not personal. “The other driver may be having a really bad day.”
Or, I would add, he may simply be carrying a gun.
