ron

Ron and Family
Chrysler / Jeep Worker
July 18, 2000, Toledo, Ohio

He had gotten really close to the fender of my bike and that’s when I got agitated

Ron: “I rode my motorcycle to the softball diamond, I had just had a lot of work done on it, airbrushing and chrome work. There was another guy there who didn’t play ball with me, but his wife had relatives who did. At the end of the game we were socializing. That guy started joking around and acting like he was going to hit my motorcycle with his car. He’d kind of move forward and brake. He had gotten really close to the fender of my bike and that’s when I got a little agitated and said something. That joke turned into an argument and a lot of harsh words were said. He asked me what I going to do about it and I told him to get out of the car and I’d show him. I figured that he wasn’t going to get out of the car and I’d just leave it at that. Then eventually he left the park and I came home about 10:45 p.m. I told my wife about the argument and then I started prepping the walls in my kitchen because I was going to paint. I got a call at about 11:20 p.m. He said, `I went to the park looking for you and you weren’t there.’ I said, `Look, you didn’t want to fight me, so I left.’ He wanted me to meet him somewhere dark, he said he had something for me. I knew he was talking about a gun. I had never touched a handgun in my life. I told him, `I don’t play games with hand guns; if you wanted to fight me you should have fought me.’ I don’t remember but my wife says I said, `If you want to come over I’m here.’ Within fifteen minutes I saw lights in my driveway. My wife said she was calling the police.

We did the hand gesture—what’s up?

“I didn’t think he was going to do this, I thought that it was a lot of talk. We did the hand gesture--what’s up?--and he started talking about the argument and then it just escalated into four letter words. I kind of knew we were going to fight and I took a step back and I was thinking, I’m going to let this guy take a punch. I’ve been trained in the martial arts for many years and I am fully capable of defending myself. He asked me, `Is this how it’s got to be?’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a nine millimeter, cocked it back and shot me dead center in my chest. I was scared, I took off running. I got about twenty feet away. I jumped up a flight of stairs and he shot me again in my back. I fell on the ground to the side of the porch and he shot again at my head and missed.

I’ve never forgotten what my kids’ faces looked like that day.

My wife came running out, she’s had the phone in her hand and she’s screaming, `He shot him! Don’t die on me, don’t die on me!’ The guy took off in his truck. One of my neighbors came and took his shirt off and put it over my chest. At the time of the shooting my youngest was four, then it went up to ten, twelve, two were sixteen; the two sixteen year-olds were gone at the time. But the three little ones were with me. There’s a ten year old boy who is growing up with me, he was there too. They all heard the first shot, they all saw the second shot. I was on the side of my porch and I looked over and I saw my four-year-old daughter, my ten-year-old son, my twelve-year-old-daughter and the ten-year-old who’s living with me. I’ve never forgotten what my kids’ faces looked like that day.

When they put that chest tube in the reality set in.

“The paramedics came. When they put that chest tube in the reality set in. That was one of the most painful things I had ever felt. Afterward we were threatened by his family and told not to testify; he was finally sentenced to eleven years. I still worry about them. After two years of treatment and rehab I went back to my job. The therapy continues to this day. ”