Marine Corps Veteran Tries to Apologize for Cutting Off Another Driver, Ends up Getting Killed: Police

Samuel Allegri
By Samuel Allegri
June 13, 2019US News
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Marine Corps Veteran Tries to Apologize for Cutting Off Another Driver, Ends up Getting Killed: Police
Stock Photo of an ambulance en route to save a life.

A police officer in South Florida said that a 41-year-old Marine Corps veteran cut off another car in traffic and that when he stopped and tried to apologize, he was shot and killed.

Retired U.S. Marine Keith Byrne was driving a white truck and accidentally cut off a blue BMW, after which the former Marine decided to apologize at the next light, reported the Sun Sentinel.

Before any rational interaction occurred, 22-year-old Andre Sinclar shot Byrne in the chest. Fatally wounded, Byrne decided to fire back, he pulled out his own gun and fired back, hitting Sinclair twice. Byrne died on the scene and Sinclair died of the injuries two days later at the hospital.

Police said Sinclair’s girlfriend was driving the BMW, and Sinclair was in the passenger seat, while their 19-month-old daughter was sitting in the backseat, reported Fox13.

“The driver, Mr. Sinclair’s girlfriend, had grabbed him by the shirt, tried to prevent him from getting out of the vehicle,” Davie Police Lt. Mark Leone said. “He did get out armed with a gun and went towards the work truck.”

“Mr. Byrne was acting in self-defense when he ultimately fired back at Mr. Sinclair,” Leone said.

Byrne was talking with a friend on the phone at the time, The friend “heard his friend Keith say, ‘My bad,’ in making an attempt to apologize,” Leone said. “At that time over the phone he heard the gunshots and Mr. Byrne said, ‘I think I’ve been shot,’ started slurring his speech, and then the phone call was disconnected.”

Police said that Sinclair got out of the car his girlfriend was driving and while displaying his gun, started walking toward Byrne, who was in his work truck.

Byrne was hit mortally in the chest and Sinclair then opened fire several times, according to police.

They both had concealed carry permits. “Mr. Byrne was acting in self-defense when he ultimately fired back at Mr. Sinclair,” Leone said, adding that if Sinclair would have survived, “we would have identified him as the primary aggressor, and he would have ultimately been charged with murder.”

The former Marine Corps family said that he will be buried with full military honors at the South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Worth.

Guns Sales

Gun sales increased more than 80 percent between 1999 and 2017, according to The DataFace, a San Francisco data analysis company, which based its estimates on FBI background check data.

There was an estimated 11 percent decline in gun sales in 2017 accompanying the election of President Donald Trump, who has largely supported gun rights, The DataFace reported.

“With the prospect of relaxed gun laws for the next four years, demand has diminished and guns sales in the U.S. have waned,” the company stated.

It’s not clear though how long the phenomenon persevered. The Trump administration moved on Dec. 18 to ban bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic rifles to fire almost as rapidly as automatic ones. At least some gun rights advocates opposed the ban.

There have been reports that far fewer households now own a gun—31 percent in 2014 compared to over 47 percent in 1980, according to surveys by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.

Yet several other polls contradict the NORC numbers. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey revealed 47 percent of households with a gun on the premises in March 2018. Gallup reported 46 percent with a gun on premises in October.

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