HOUSTON: A young family was out to enjoy the July 4th holiday and brought fireworks at the event when they got into an altercation with a man who cut them off while driving.
The driver of the other vehicle, Bayron J. Rivera, 21, kept wanting to take the altercation to another level even after Fred Smith and the mother of his two young children, Jasmin Worlford, tried to de-escalate the situation.
Rivera claimed Smith called him an expletive in front of his girlfriend, which he felt caused him to respond the way he did. He was 18 at the time. Rivera followed the family until they pulled into a gas station to get gas, and Smith told him the situation was not worth all this.
Rivera pulled out a firearm; Smith got back into the car, and Rivera followed the family, firing into their vehicle, and causing the car to ignite.
The family, including their two young children, 2-year-old Messiah and 1-year-old Bentley – had just left a Fiesta after purchasing fireworks and all suffered injuries but the two toddlers were severely burned during the incident.
Part of the incident was captured on surveillance video. Video shows moment of fireworks explosion in the truck after road rage shooting incident
Unfortunately, A mistrial was declared on the two counts of injury to the children because the state couldn’t prove the gunshots set off the fireworks. source