A road-rage victim is still uneasy even after two men were convicted Monday of shooting up his Cobb County home.
“Sometimes when I am walking to my vehicle I get this feeling like I am being hunted or something,” he said. “This feeling of nervousness comes over me. I just don't relax like I used to anymore.”
The Kennesaw man, whose home was riddled with nine bullets last March, requested that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution withhold his and his wife’s name due to fear that disclosing their identities could put them in further danger.
Marlo Pinnock and Richard Perry face 20 years in prison with 14 to serve for the March 2016 incident, Cobb County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kim Isaza said.
Just days before that shooting, they’d followed the victim home and fired one shot at him.
The victim said the judge issued a lifetime protective order against Pinnock, Perry and their families after some of the men’s relatives took pictures of him in court and followed him to his car.
Pinnock, who is from Jamaica, will be deported after he completes his sentence, Channel 2 Action News reported.
That March 15, 2016 day started as any other for traffic in metro Atlanta.
The man told The AJC he had just gotten off work and was sitting in traffic headed home. Pinnock and Perry were in front of him.
When the light turned green, he said they didn’t move.
“Everybody blew their horns,” the victim said, himself included.
But Pinnock and Perry, he said, drove next to him. Thinking nothing of it, the victim said he went home.
“It wasn’t until I turned in (to his neighborhood) when I realized they’d followed me,” he said.
The victim parked in a cul-de-sac at an angle. When he got out of his car, the suspects fired a shot at him, he said. That’s when he went to grab his gun, but Pinnock and Perry had sped off by then.
Two days later, just as the couple were easing off the idea that the suspects would return, they drove by and fired nine rounds.
“It sounded like someone was throwing rocks,” the victim said. One of the shots narrowly missed him.
That’s when he cut off the lights and grabbed his gun. By that time the shots had stopped and, thanks to a neighbor who witnessed the ordeal, police were on their way.
“There are nights that I come home and I’m almost holding my breath thinking something bad might happen,” he said.
Since then, he and his wife have put dashcams on their cars.
“Had I had it on Day 1, it would’ve picked up their plates,” he said, “and Day 2 wouldn’t have happened.”
Pinnock’s attorney argued in court that the victim was just as much at fault when he engaged with his client, Channel 2 reported. He did admit his client shouldn’t have followed and later shot up the man’s home.
The victim denies he provoked the men since they sped off before seeing his weapon. What concerned him the most is the duo’s disregard for other potential victims.
“Just the lack of concern for anybody,” he said. “It just blows my mind.”
About the Author
