After a year of court battle, a jury on Wednesday announced police officer Frank White not guilty of criminal offense in the shooting of Rachel Silva and her 8-yearold son during a road rage incident.
In a blog post “Jury acquits police officer in a road rage case” , the author said the defendant wants to get back to his work as a police officer. For many months, he was forced to take unpaid leave while the hearing was still ongoing.
According to earlier reports, White said he shot Silva to defend himself and his family and that he did not know that she was with her son.
The road rage incident first started when Silva and White were caught in the traffic side by side and the woman thought the police officer was traveling too close from her car.
According to White, Silva followed his car and accelerated and stopped as if showing that she will ram her vehicle to his.
Meanwhile, in a surprising turn of event, it was Silva who is now in the “hot seat” as her hearing for driving under the influence (DUI) case is scheduled to be sentenced next month. According to police reports, Silva’s blood-alcohol level was .15 (which is two times higher than the legal limit) even if two hours had already passed after the shooting incident.
Since Silva admitted that she was drunk at the time of the incident, some lawyers said she could also face felony child endangerment case because her young son was traveling with her during the road rage incident.