Inset: Michael Holloway (Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: A stretch of road near a high school where Holloway was allegedly in a road rage incident (Google Maps).
A man was recently arrested in Georgia over an alleged road rage incident involving two parents — and their children — and two states.
Michael Holloway, 47, stands accused of aggravated assault over the Sunday afternoon fracas that left another man shot and injured.
The defendant was riding among a group of fellow motorcyclists. The man shot in the shoulder was driving in an SUV. Each man appears to have feared for the safety of their child.
“At some point while traveling on Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, a road rage incident occurred between the motorcyclists and the victim, resulting in one of the motorcyclists firing at the victim’s vehicle near East Hamilton High School,” the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a press release.
Also known as Georgia Highway 151 and Tennessee State Route 321, Ooltewah-Ringgold Road cuts a significant stretch of miles through both the Peach and Volunteer states in a north-south direction.
On Sunday, the victim and his daughter were driving north, according to the sheriff’s office. That’s when they came upon six motorcyclists. Holloway and his son were each on their own bike.
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The SUV first passed a couple of the motorcycles, according to an affidavit obtained by Chattanooga-based ABC and Fox affiliate WTVC.
Having their vehicle in the middle of the split-up group apparently did not endear the occupants of the SUV to at least one bike rider.
“[A]fter passing the two motorcycles, they were behind a younger male on a motorcycle in a bright-colored shirt, who turned around and started ‘flipping off’ her dad,” according to the affidavit, citing the shooting victim’s 20-year-old daughter.
The woman said her father passed the younger man by at an intersection — allowing all the motorcycles to regroup.
But then, she said, one bike rider pursued them.
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The victim’s daughter described the man, later identified as Holloway, as driving a “Harley-type” motorcycle and said he “had driven up beside them and started cursing them” and then “grabbed at the mirror on their vehicle and broke the driver side mirror.”
The mirror breakage allegedly prompted her father to respond, the woman told sheriff’s deputies.
“[H]er father threw a water bottle out of the window at this motorcyclist and while trying to overtake the motorcycle, the cyclist pulled a pistol and fired through the back window of the vehicle,” the affidavit obtained by the TV station reads.
After the incident culminated with a single shot fired outside the high school in Tennessee, the injured man drove himself to a nearby fire station and was treated there. While waiting for an ambulance, the victim’s daughter gave police the shooter’s description.
The driver of the SUV was ultimately grazed in the arm near the shoulder. The bullet was found in the folds of his shirt, authorities said. Deputies also took note of damage to the vehicle’s driver’s side mirror and the rear passenger side window.
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Later that same day, Catoosa County deputies, working off the description in a “Be On the Look Out” request, pulled Holloway over — and found a .380 caliber handgun in his possession.
“Holloway was arrested by [the] Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office and taken to the Catoosa County Jail,” the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office wrote in their press release. “An arrest warrant has been issued for Holloway by Hamilton County Sessions Court.”
During an intake interview, the defendant allegedly gave his version of what led to the thoroughfare contretemps.
At first, Holloway allegedly insisted he had not left Georgia that day. Later, however, he allegedly admitted to squeezing out a round from his Ruger .380 LCP during the incident — saying he was “extremely angry” about a perceived threat to his 16-year-old son.
“[T]he victim’s vehicle had pulled out of a neighborhood and was tailgating his son,” a document obtained by WTVC reads, offering the defendant’s perspective. “[T]he vehicle was attempting to run he and his son off the road, and the female passenger had thrown a water bottle out the window and hit his son with it.”
Authorities are still investigating the incident and seeking the public’s help to obtain video of what, exactly, occurred that day.
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