Road Rage. Perhaps we’ve all felt it to some degree. Whether being cut off unsuspectedly or dealing with a careless driver who throws a cigarette butt out his window in your direction – it’s easy to become angered at the lack of mindfulness on the Las Vegas roads.
However, is that anger really worth it? Did severe spouts of anger ever help anyone? Or does the anger often lead to even more harmful incidents – for either ourselves, others, or both? Even stranger – what if a driver is angry and aggressive toward you for no reason of your causing? Such appears to be the case in the following stories.
A Series of Seemingly Connected Road Rage Shootings
For the past few years, Metro police have been dealing with a series of crazy road rage shootings in a particular section of northeast Las Vegas; detectives began to believe many of the shootings happened coming from the same, short-tempered driver, yet they couldn’t get to the bottom of the case until recently.
Over and over, suspects of the road rage incidents described the same vengeful man to Metro. He was a heavy-set Hispanic man in either his late 20s or early 30s. He had a full beard. In most of the shootings, he was described in a maroon four-door sedan.
One Las Vegas Motorist Charged
However, this mysterious road rage man managed to exit the scene of the incidents every time, often leaving a trail of 9 mm shell casings in his wake. These casings eventually led detectives to locate Fernando Mancinas Rebollar. He was positively linked to six different shootings and is suspected of even more.
Rebollar is 28-years-old and was indicted on 28 felony counts ranging from assault with a deadly weapon, discharging a firearm from or within a vehicle, and discharging a firearm into an occupied structure or vehicle. Our Las Vegas criminal defense lawyers say that the sheer amount of shootings will be a crucial consideration when it comes to sentencing.
Rebollar pleaded not guilty to a preliminary hearing in October, despite admitting to at least four of the shootings back in September. In one of the shootings, according to three victims, Rebollar nearly smashed into their car after he ran a stop sign. In response, Rebollar screamed at the victims out of his car window and took out his gun, shooting at their vehicle three times.
Eyewitness Accounts of The Road Rage Shootings
In another incident, two victims were stopped near Bonanza and Sloan when Rebollar pulled up beside them and began making comments to the driver, as well as the female passengers. He then tried to pull in front of their car to block them from moving forward, but the driver sped away. Immediately as the driver accelerated, he and the female passengers in the car heard gunshots from behind them – coming from Rebollar’s car.
The most violent incident that Rebollar is being charged for took place in September when Victor Ibarra was stopped at a red light. Rebollar approached the light, cut off another car, and pulled up next to Ibarra. The two spoke briefly before Rebollar fired into Ibarra’s car, striking him in the chest and arm – causing one of his lungs to collapse. Ibarra was rushed to UMC in critical condition.
Suspect Admitted to The Shootings
Police were able to track down Rebollar after that incident and search his home where they found three 9 mm firearms and ammunition matching spent casings found at various crime scenes. As stated, Rebollar admitted to at least four of the six shootings (though he would later plead not guilty to all of them.)
He was booked into Clark County Detention Center, and there he remains on $75,000 bail until his trial this month.