Amidst the sharp rise in homicides in cities across America, some of the sickening violence continues to be triggered by the most disturbingly trivial of causes.
Earlier this month, we saw a man shot dead in New York City simply for flicking his cigarette in the direction of the wrong people.
In like vein, an Alabama driver now stands accused of shooting dead a pedestrian just because the man took too long to cross the street in front of his car.
Jeremiah Wesley Penn, 22, has been charged with capital murder after he allegedly shot 29-year-old Johnarian Travez Allen eight times last Thursday evening in Union Springs, about 45 miles southeast of Montgomery.
Penn had already fled the scene of the shooting by the time police responded, at around around 7 p.m., but turned himself in to an off-duty sheriff’s deputy shortly afterwards.
The driver allegedly confessed to police that he had stopped his car to let Allen cross the street but became angry when the walker didn’t move out of the roadway fast enough, WSFA reports.
As a verbal altercation ensued between the two men, Penn got out of his vehicle and fired multiple shots, killing the victim, according to Union Springs Police Chief Danny Jackson.
Allen had reportedly been walking to a store to purchase food at the time, and the two men are not thought to have known each other.
Penn is being held in the Bullock County Jail.