JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

It’s a crying shame what happened out at 104th and Holmes less than two weeks ago, after a young Lee’s Summit man gave in to an urge to catch up and jawbone with a man who had badgered him for going too slow.

It was also inevitable that the perp would get caught; a camera caught an excellent image of him in a distinctive, metallic-blue car, and over the weekend he was apprehended on the basis of a tip.

Left in the wake of what should have been an inconsequential, momentary encounter is a 19-year-old, father-to-be dead, and a 45-year-old Independence man — married 15 months ago — in jail, charged with second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.

We’re just lucky — we as a community — that Tailer Monroe was just grazed by the bullet that killed Chris Hutson. It could easily have a been two-for-one shot.

Let’s retrace this fateful encounter because it is worthy of dissection.

Hutson and Monroe had just left a medical appointment where Monroe had had a sonogram. She is seven months pregnant. The couple had been on I-435 but got off at State Line Road, went north and took a right on 103rd. Hutson was driving slowly because he and Tailor had lost their way.

John C. Young

At that point, along came John C. Young, a cabinet maker, who, for some reason, was in a hurry. He was also packing.

After Hutson and Monroe stopped for a red light at Wornall Road, a car pulled up beside them, and Young yelled at them, “Learn to fuckin’ drive!”

Instead of ignoring Young, Hutson gave chase, and when the cars were side by side a couple of blocks later, Young fired at least one shot into Hutson and Monroe’s car. A bullet struck Hutson in the head and continue its flight, grazing Monroe.

His business completed, Young drove away.

**

That was on Thursday, May 25, at 4:15 p.m. Broad daylight, lots of cars in the area.

Within minutes after the incident occurred, I heard on the radio about a traffic back-up near I-435 and Holmes. I listened with particular attention because I sometimes get off I-435 and head north on Holmes when I’m returning home from my golf course in Pleasant Hill.

About an hour after the first report of traffic congestion, I heard another report, saying several emergency vehicles were at the scene. That’s when I suspected there was a lot more to it than traffic congestion. My instincts were correct.

Had I been in the car with Hutson and Monroe, I would have been screaming at Hutson to let it go — to swallow his pride, take a couple of deep breaths and get back to getting on track.

The only thing that possibly could have come from giving chase, I would have told him, was trouble.

Let me emphasize, I am not blaming the victim. I’m just saying it’s foolhardy to engage these assholes who are in a hurry on the roadways. All of us see it almost every day — people racing past the rest of the traffic, often cutting across a couple of lanes to demonstrate their driving skills and to make the important point that the rest of us are merely irritants in their lives at that particular moment. The ultimate incongruity, of course, is although these people are always in a big hurry, they’ve always got time to fuck with you.

But here’s the key line in The Star’s most recent story: A friend of Young said “he has known Young to carry a pistol for protection.”

Ah, yes, protection. You really need protection when you’re driving around in a hurry because…because other people are going to be in your way! The gall of it all — being delayed by these tortoises puttering along at the speed limit, or less.

Here’s another interesting line from The Star’s story: “Young has reportedly told police he has a self-defense argument to make.”

I can’t wait to hear that, can you?

It will go something like this:

I was driving along minding my own business, when I passed this car and the driver started yelling and swearing at me. For no reason whatsoever! Then he started chasing me and pulled up beside me. I thought he was going to run me off the road. I was scared to death. I thought I was going to die. Fortunately, I had my gun with me, and I picked it up and fired. I wasn’t aiming at him, I swear. It was just an instantaneous reaction. I just wanted to scare him.

Mark my words, if this case goes to trial and Young testifies, that’s close to what we will hear him say under oath.

As he sits in his cell in the Jackson County Detention Center, Young has plenty of time to work on his story. Maybe he’ll come up with something even more creative, like Hutson pointed something out the window at him and he thought it was a gun.

Too bad for him the bullet that killed Hutson didn’t take out Monroe, too. Because she’s going to counter his story with her own. Maybe she will play down whatever exchange there was between Hutson and Young. Who knows? Maybe she, too, was yelling. We will probably never know exactly what was said.

But who do you think a jury is likely to believe? A woman who was seven months pregnant returning home from a sonogram with her late boyfriend or a shithead driving around with a gun beside him?

**

Back in October, I wrote about two road-rage incidents in which people were killed. In that post, I said, “Way too many of those people (wackos) are out there on the roads, and the best policy is to move over and let ’em blow by, especially now that we’re in the lock-‘n-load era.”

One reason I’ve lived to be 71 is that I’ve run from fights and potentially violent encounters ever since my grade-school classmates hit puberty and surpassed me in height and weight and their voices got lower than mine.

Let the hotheads go. Restraint in the face of irrationality is a life-saving policy.