Criminal rock throwing

Rock throwing (alt.: stone pelting) is a form of criminal assault.

In the 18th century, William Blackstone stated that throwing stones in a town or city on a highway, when it caused a death, was to be defined as manslaughter rather than murder.

Rocks thrown at cars moving along highways at high speeds have been a particular problem in a number of developed countries. According to Austin, Texas police detective Jarrett Crippen "When we’re talking about highway speeds of 60, 70 mph, that rock is hitting you full-force... If it's coming through your windshield, it can cause serious damage to the body, vehicle or even death." A Washington State trooper said of an arrest of criminal rock-throwers, "Any one of these rocks could have punctured a windshield, hit the driver in the face and killed them." Although the rocks are often thrown from overpasses or high points along the roadside, people riding in cars have also been killed by rocks thrown at random vehicles from passing cars. Thrown rocks can kill in a number of ways; a rock can hit a passenger directly in the head with lethal force, a rock can strike the driver causing him or her to lose control of the car and crash, the "jolt and shock of a barrage of stones smashing against the front windshield" can cause the driver to lose control and crash, or the out of control vehicle can slam into a passing car, causing it to crash.

On January 11, 1994 Sheila Mayfield, a 25-year-old motorist from Jasper, Montana, was killed near Tulsa, Oklahoma, by an 8-pound rock thrown through the windshield of her car. Her assailant was charged with first degree murder.

In 1999, University of Alabama professor Julie Laible was killed by a 22-pound rock thrown from an overpass on Interstate 75 by hooligans in Manatee County, Florida.

In 2000 near Darmstadt, Germany, a gang of stone-throwing American teenagers killed a 20-year-old woman and critically injured her grandmother, then hit another car, killing the 41-year-old mother of 2 small children.

In 2005 Chris Currie, 20 years old, was killed by a 8 kg block of concrete dropped from an overpass and hitting the car by Ngatai Rewiti, 14-year-old, who was charged with murder.

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Wikipedia