Saturday, November 02, 2002

Welcome the new neighbors alert!
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reveals that Road-shooting charge filed:
A Henrico County resident has been charged with shooting a Powhatan County man on the Powhite Parkway last month as the victim was on his way to a fishing tournament.

Chesterfield County police this week charged Suth Som, 33, of the 8500 block of Mark Lawn Drive, with one count each of malicious wounding, shooting into an occupied vehicle and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Two other suspects are being sought.

Som is accused of shooting a 48-year-old Powhatan man as he was towing his bass boat during the early morning hours of Oct. 20.

Police said the shooting stemmed from an earlier encounter between the victim, a man and two of his friends at a Sheetz gas station on U.S. 60 in Powhatan.

The victim had stopped at the station for gas about 4:30 a.m., and as he did, one of three men in the car next to him got out and began urinating on the gas pumps, said Sgt. Dave Pritchard.

"Our victim advised the person that what he was doing was inappropriate, and he shouldn't be doing it," Pritchard said. The men "basically told him to get lost."

The victim finished pumping his gas and drove away. The men followed him east on U.S. 60 to Old Hundred Road, and then onto the Powhite Parkway. As he drove past state Route 288, the men pulled alongside his car and opened fire with a .45-caliber pistol.

"They shot twice - one apparently hits the bass boat and one hits the guy in the side," Pritchard said.

The man managed to pull over at a nearby toll plaza and alert police. He suffered a grazing wound to the left side of his chest and a puncture wound to his left arm. The latter wound was caused by a metal shard knocked from the passenger's side door as the bullet ripped through.
Tsk, that's what happens when you are judgmental and not properly sensitive to cultural differences.

But God got the last laugh:
As police were responding to the shooting, they discovered a car that had run off the road and into a nearby embankment. It was a 1993 Nissan, the same car the three men were in.

"They totaled the car," Pritchard said. The men fled on foot.

Investigators eventually tracked down Som, who they believe was the driver.