Click the play button on the video window to see the story
ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- 18-year-old Stewart Jones has a metal rod in his broken tibia after surgery. Both of his thighs were pierced by a .40-caliber handgun bullet but his positive attitude is still holding strong.
"I'm very lucky. There were seven rounds fired and only two of them hit me," said Jones. The Mitchell High school graduate is an unfortunate example of how dangerous road rage can be.
"The guy rolled down the window and started yelling and put up a gun and we all just ducked immediately and we heard some shots go off," according to Jones.
Surveillance video from outside this Odessa subdivison shows the yellow Wrangler Jones was riding in with three other friends. Just behind them, behind the wheel of a pickup, sat 34-year-old Michael Hanley.
Hanley pulled up behind the Jeep with four teens inside. He became upset that the driver had not pulled close enough to a stop sign at Gunn Highway and Parker Point, according to Pasco County Sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll.
Investigators say he was bi-polar, had intense anger issues and was fresh off a family argument.
The teens said they thought Hanley got angry because they were taking too long to turn so the driver, Andrew Sestok, drove forward so that he could drive around them. But instead Sestok said Hanley started yelling and pointed a handgun at the Jeep.
He fired a half-dozen times hitting passenger Stuart Jones twice in the leg. The teens fled in the Jeep and the suspect drove away.
Detectives say Hanley had argued with his girlfriend and left his home where he lived with his parents. He told her he was going to take out some law enforcement officers, Doll said.
"It's important to note that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and he had a tactical flack vest in the vehicle with him so he was armed and he was prepared to do battle. With whom, we don't know," Pasco County Sheriff Bob White told WFTS.
A short time later, Hanley was found dead in his pickup truck at the end of Byrd Road with a self-inflicted gunshot wound from an assault rifle. He was wearing a bullet proof vest and had the rifle and a handgun inside his truck.
Sheriff White credited Jones' friends, saying trying to get away from the gunman was exactly the right thing to do.
Jones says he's looking forward to attending college in a couple of weeks and knows he's fortunate he's still here to tell the story.
