A former Marine returned fire during a road range incident in South Florida, killing the aggressor, before dying of a gunshot wound himself.
Keith Byrne reportedly accidentally cut off another car in traffic. When the two vehicles reached a stoplight, the passenger in the other car approached Byrne.
At the light, 22-year-old Andre Sinclair, who was in the passenger seat, got out of the car with a gun.
Sinclair’s girlfriend, who was driving, told police she tried to hold him back. The couple’s infant child was in the backseat.
As Sinclair approached the truck, Byrne said, “my bad.” That’s when Sinclair began shooting, according to police.
Byrne was shot in the chest and died at the scene. Sinclair, who was hit multiple times, died later at a local hospital.
“It’s irrelevant that we are in Davie or Broward. Road rage can happen anywhere at any time. Out there on the roads, we must share the roads with everybody. Everybody is trying to get somewhere, school, work, home, uh everybody is in a rush to get somewhere. But when we start letting our tempers get involved, bad things happen,” said Sgt. Mark Leone.
Had Sinclair lived, he would have been judged as the aggressor and charged with murder.
A GuFundMe account has been set up for Byrne’s family.
South Florida is the home of some of the rudest drivers I’ve seen and I’ve been to most of our large cities. It is something of a surprise to me that we don’t hear more of this kind of thing coming from this area. Yet another good reason to have a gun in your vehicle. It’s a pity that the outcome was two dead.
Southern CA? Actually all the major metropolitan areas in CA. I just came back from OR and saw one instance of jackassery but you could use your blinker to change lanes without someone accelerating to try and cut you off.
Not is South Florida, if you use a blinker the vehicle will accelerate to prevent you from getting in. It is the rudest place to drive in the USA.
Same blinker thing happens in Illinois.
Which is kind of odd since the only state that rivals Florida in state troopers per mile of road is maybe Georgia.
Cannot disagree.
I live in the Houston Area and things are not that bad compared to the 1980’s here.
However, when ANYONE gets out of his car OR follows my vehicle, that person is asking to be shot and stopped.
I will gladly do the honors. I WILL NOT BE SHOT if I can help it.
That’s what I was thinking. Once someone gets out of their car you have to figure they have bad intentions.
I live in Texas, near Houston, but I’m from New England, where competitive driving is a not only a art form, it’s a sport. Hard to find ruder drivers except in New Jersey. I have found 99.5% of Texas drivers are courteous and even tempered, avoid aggressive actions or tailgating at 80 MPH, move over and also allow you space and opportunity to get on or off highway. With the slight exception of some Dodge 2500 Bro truck drivers….As a driver in Texas you have to remember, 1/3 vehicles have a gun in them, perfectly legal to keep a loaded rifle on the front seat…An armed society is a polite society. I love Texas….
Because they know everyone is armed.
An armed society is a polite society.
Road rage is number one on my threat profile. If you cannot access your firearm quickly while driving, you might as well not have one.
I agree. It might be a good idea to verify if you can safely unholster your unloaded gun while the car is parked in the garage.
511 Tactical has plaid long-sleeve shirts with hidden pockets on the left and right sides. They would accommodate a pocket handgun such as a Kel-Tec 32 or Beretta Tomcat 32.
I have one and it works out great for CCW. While sitting in a car or movie theater my gun is very easy to get to.
Agreed, as a trainer, and a trainee in the use of self-defense with and without weapons, it is important to be aware. I attended a force-on-force training class where they ran a road rage incident, and it taught me about how important it is to be able to access your firearm quickly; which is not always easy to do when you’re wearing a seatbelt seated in a car. It can’t be stressed enough that anyone who carries a firearm for self-defense needs to train and train some more.
People are insane in their cars. Just remember, if you are in an incident like this, your best weapon may not be your gun. Not only can you escape in your car (go ahead and break a traffic law to do it if you have to) but running someone over is a pretty effective use of force.
Whenever possible in traffic I maintain enough distance when at a stop that I can get out of the line of cars, even if it means going over a curb. Never know when you might have to.
I do that as well, mainly because I don’t care to be stuck there if something ahead obstructs traffic. Anytime I encounter an aggressive vehicle (or a general asshole) I check for an “egress” path.
C’mon… you’re in a self propelled steel box. If gunfire comes into play it is because both parties allowed it to.
@Tom It appears Keith Byrne really wasn’t given opportunity to exit the situation before it erupted in gunfire.
Facts are, the events all unfolded extremely fast, reading the descriptions make it sound like he had time to assess the situation, which, I can tell you having ridden shot gun with him for 20 years he was always prepared and trained and practiced constantly. The only way he could have shot back while mortally wounded was if he had his weapon readily available….think about that, the second thing is their was a car in front of and behind him. Keith had the best reflexes of anyone I have ever known. We are all very surprised by this but not surprised he fired back.
“Whenever possible in traffic I maintain enough distance when at a stop that I can get out of the line of cars, even if it means going over a curb.”
So much *this*…
Yep, if you see someone getting out of their car and walking toward you at a stop light the best course of action is to drive away if at all possible. If not, get your gat ready.
Visit Jersey if you think the driving in Florida is bad. You won’t want to come back a second time,
Matter of fact, don’t bother coming at all. There are too damned many people here already and besides, it’s illegal to let God sort ’em out properly.
I have driven in both and South Florida wins in the worst drivers.
Doc, those South Florida drivers are from New Jersey. And points north.
No those bad drivers are Cuban Refs and Latin American immigrants
“Snow birds” from the retirement communities, not to mention all the refugees from NY relocating to points south in an attempt to save their pensions from excessive taxation. From where I sit there’s at least a half-dozen “over 55” retiree communities near me ranging from low-end trailer parks to Hovnanian gated communities.
I drive for a living and appreciate the bad weather when it rains like hell or a couple inches of snow hit the road. Why?
Because it keeps the fair weather dreck off the streets.
Going to have to step in here and say from my experience pennsultucky drivers take the cake. They have absolutely zero idea what the law “keep right except to pass” means, they just meander in the fast lane with no cars in the slow lane, that is until you try and pass then its a$$hole time, I mean nascar time. Of course that’s not taking into account that short bus riders created the road signs in pennsyltucky as they never make sense and are wrong %90 of the time which I’m sure contributes to the horrid driving.
A quick raised middle finger is all that was needed. No reason for this to escalate into murder. Sinclair was an obviously looking to start some trouble, and seems he found it. So a former U.S. Marine and possibly a combat vet died in American instead of in combat because Sinclair couldn’t accept his apology. Lucky for the girlfriend, she may now be free to find a real man to raise her child. WTF is wrong with people.
It probably started with a raised middle finger.
Yes, people should be grown up enough by the time that they begin driving that they can tolerate something as minute as being cut off in traffic or someone flipping them the bird, but in the era of the millenial snowflake, that seems to be too much to ask.
The first method of de-escalation is to avoid driving like an @$$. The is no reason the bre cutting off people and annoying other drivers, particularly when you don’t know who the ill-tempered among us are. Drive defensively.
The second method is to be apologetic. If you are “bad enough” to carry a firearm, then you should be big enough to apologize if you screw up. If you accidentally cut someone off, a small apologetic wave will go a lot further toward calming the situation than the middle finger will.
In these situations, situational awareness is your biggest defense if things start to go south. If someone starts driving aggressively around you, presumably because you have unknowingly “offended them” with your horrific driving etiquette (sarcasm intended), make sure that you have your firearm accessible and ready to go (that means a round in the chamber). If driving defensively and being apologetic fail to get the aggressor to leave you alone, and you are not in a position where stopping is imminent, call 9-1-1 and let call center know where you are and what is going on. This helps to document that you are not the aggressor, and it helps with quickly identifying your location if EMS is needed.
Lastly, if you run out of road or find yourself in a place where you must stop, keep your eyes on the threat as much as possible. If the other driver approaches your car on foot, do NOT roll down your window. This makes it harder for him to see you and what you are doing, and this is not the time for you to exchange words. If he has a weapon in his hand as he approaches, you will have to decide what toy believe that his intent is. I know this much; unless he’s wearing a law enforcement uniform or displaying a badge of some kind, I already have a reasonable assumption about his intentions, and my actions would reflect that.
The desired goal here is to get everyone home safely, but if it is unavoidable, the non-agressor should be the one of the two going home, whether it is because the aggressor is deceased or jail-bound.
“The second method is to be apologetic.”
Did you miss where the victim immediately apologized even as the shooter was walking up? The guy had made up his mind to kill someone. Apologizing to your murder doesn’t leave you any less dead.
From what I understand the victim was about to apologize to the assailant before he was shot, then returned fire.
The dead Devil Dog hesitated on a threat, and was expecting an obviously irrational person to behave rationally, which is a fatal mistake. I understand if he hesitated because of the aggressor’s race, but Florida has stand you ground and the thug qualified for hot lead injections, the instant the door cracked open and he began to exit.
The Marine hesitated dropping the black thug getting out of the car, and that is the only lesson to be learned from this. The Marine should have had his weapon pointed at the the threat, the instant the door opened on the BMW. Profiling is an integral part of situational awareness and the facts in America are that black males under 30, are responsible for most of the murders in our country.
Agree. I reserve the right to “profile.” And I don’t give a good ***damn if it offends the Progtards,
He may have been apologizing but I can assure you his hand was on the trigger at his side. He was fatally wounded within a second and shot back, multiple times, hitting a fleeing target twice! This did not happen casually, it happened in less than a minutes time the whole thing, Sinclair did not “walk towards him” he ran, his girlfriend was trying to hold him back, he was enraged and not moving at a casual pace.
Always be alert polite and at the ready your gun if the first two fail ok
If you possibly can always drive away from trouble and call the cops. Obviously that’s not always possible.
What is wrong with people that they feel the need to shoot somebody over traffic? With his girl friend and their baby in his car no less? There is something massively wrong in the heads of people who do these things.
I’m guessing the guy wasn’t singing Kum Bye Ya when he was first cut off. Practical guarantee he was in a dispute with the girlfriend already, assuming meth wasn’t involved.
It always amazes me how little people value their lives. The stupid shit they throw it all away on from a little cash in a wallet to a perceived slight from a stranger. I suppose if these cretins had the forethought to consider the ultimate cost of their actions they wouldn’t be cretins.
Shire-man,
I suspect that little people value their lives just as much as big people. (tounge-in-cheek)
Accidentally cut off. No indication he attempted to wave sorry or display another indication he was sorry. Something is missing.
He literally said he was sorry as the guy was walking up. He still got shot.
Andre Sinclair
One guess.
Asian, or Jew. I’m never wrong.
Lol
It is a tragedy that the defender did not survive. At least he was able to take the hyper-aggressive scumbag with him and ensure that said scumbag will never maim nor murder anyone else ever again.
Rott in hell Sinclair
Buff cousin Elroy,
I have it on pretty good authority that Sinclair, at this very moment, is doing exactly that.
This is an example of why you must obtain a concealed carry permit and carry 24/7. A concealed carry permit allows you to carry your weapon on or about your person without having to reach for your console box, glove box or carry case. You must react as if person getting out of the other vehicles are a lethal threat and have your weapon at the ready. If the person who is about to assault you has a weapon in their hand then you can perceive that as a threat of physical injury or death against you. I have seen cases where a person got out of a vehicle with a bat and walked back to the other motorists vehicle and swung the bat at window to break window but inadvertently hit the driver in the head and killed them.
I have driven vehicles in turd world countries and a lot of big US cities. The one thing I have learned is, just ’cause you got a license to drive doesn’t mean you should. Some people are either looking for trouble or are willing to cause trouble.
Then there are the repressed/depressed mentally ill.
Slat Lake City has some very bad drivers, any bad habit you can imagine is on display. If they aren’t going 20-30 over the limit they are in the fast lane driving 20-30 under. In one mile you will be tail-gated, passed on the right or cut-off by cars trying to exit from the middle lane.I think it is the stress of their religion being so repressive and full of dumb-assery. Remember they gave us mittins the roach and have a damnocrat mayor refusing to work with ICE.
I drive with my pistol on the counsel of my truck for self defense. Haven’t needed it YET.
PS; if you can’t see the wheels of the rig in front of you at a stoplight, you are too close and can’t escape if need be.
At the risk of appearing to be insensitive, this tragic event may illustrate an attack where the defender truly needed a duty-size handgun with standard capacity magazines capable of holding at least 15 rounds of ammunition, which allows for some misses and several hits without having to reload.
Most attackers are not very motivated and will skedaddle as soon as you return fire. However, some attackers are Hell-bent on destruction and you will be forced to shoot them several times in order to immediately render them incapable of harming you. (Handguns are “weak sauce” and will almost never immediately incapacitate a motivated attacker with one or even a few hits.)
The following attackers would fall into the “Hell-bent on destruction” category:
(1) despondent/infuriated ex-boyfriend/husband
(2) stalker
(3) road rager
(4) spree-killer
(5) terrorist
He was already shot when he returned fire. The size of your weapon doesn’t help you decide to shoot sooner.
Cloudbuster,
I did not say anything about shooting sooner or later.
All I was saying is that you will want as much “firepower” as possible if you are defending yourself against a determined attacker who is Hell-bent on destruction.
(Note: this lesson is free-standing. This lesson is also tangentially related to an article yesterday or the day before inquiring about the utility of carrying a round in the chamber and the utility of capacity as well as spare magazines.)
I did not say anything about shooting sooner or later.
No, I did. Because that is the only lesson to be learned from this. Byrne’s gun was good enough to make multiple hits on target and stop the attacker. We have no idea if it was a duty size gun or if he had spare magazines. Unfortunately he was already mortally wounded by the time he decided to use it — and there lies the lesson.
All your “this tragic event may illustrate an attack where the defender truly needed a duty-size handgun with standard capacity magazines, blah, blah….” is you projecting your own interests on the incident.
Agreed. I keep a MAC 10 clone at the ready in my truck.
MAC 10…lucky
did you even bother to read the article before you wrote your soliloquy?
nothing you said about “duty size weapon” is remotely relevant.
For the record sir….Keith was fatally wounded and was still able to fire and land 2 shots that caused 2 days of suffering and finally death on a moving target because the coward shot and ran!! Ill say he was well prepared and adequately armed.
I read about this story a week or so ago. at the time it wasn’t immediately clear why Sinclair would be charged as the aggressor. To play devil’s advocate, if i were driving and someone cut me off and then got out of their vehicle and approached mine AND i had my kid(s) in the car, while i doubt i’d be as trigger happy as Sinclair i would definitely make sure i was ready in case SHTF.
I hate to victim blame, but Byrne never should have gotten out of his car. Its not inconceivable that could be interpreted as an aggressive act. Of course i wasn’t there and its possible Byrne carried himself in such a way that only a clown could think he was a threat.
shame what appears to be a decent guy got killed.
I think you misread the events. The guy that got cut off is the one that got out of his car with a gun and approached the guy that cut him off, not the other way around. The guy that cut him off is the one that apologized with “sorry, my bad”, just before he was shot. At least that’s how the story above reads.
wow.. yes you are correct. Specifically i think i misread the previous article i saw about this and carried that forward here.
in my defense i’m a math guy not a words guy :p
The orignal story is written poorly.
Look at his obituary photo. I’m not an expert, but he looks stoned.
Senseless…
Thinking about the question: “what is wrong with people…?”
Some frighteningly large portion of the population is on anti-depressants, bi-polar medication, or some other prescription for improving mood. Why are so many people feeling so poorly?
How many more are self-medicating?
My theory is that we have poisoned our water supply, our soil, and our food supply with neurotoxins and endocrine disrupting chemicals. This has nothing to do with the anthroprogenic global warming hoax. It has to do with high levels of mercury in the water and soil, for example. Endocrine disruptors like BPA, atrazine, and widely used pesticides are causing widespread, pronounced hormonal disruption. When you endocrine system is disrupted you cannot feel well or think well.
What has this got to do with guns? We need to yell loudly that guns do not cause violence. This poisoning is literally causing people to go off balance and become violent. That is the problem to address. We will not eliminate the violence by taking away guns. We need to point squarely at the real problems caused by toxicity.
In the meantime, holster-up when you get dressed in the morning. It is dangerous out there.
LifeSavor,
I applaud you for thinking out of the box.
Personally, I do not think there is widespread toxicity in our drinking water, soil, and food supply. Therefore, I do not think that widespread toxicity is the primary cause of society’s ills.
Rather, I believe we can attribute society’s ills to mankind’s unrestrained nature and lack of wisdom absent a Godly faith. Think about that for a moment. Family members tell me how EVERYONE (pretty much literally) went to mainline Christian churches in the 1950s and into the 1960s. Those churches taught wisdom, including how to be content, happy, and at peace in everyday, average, realistic life. Today, untold masses of people deny God’s existence as well as God’s wisdom and design for our lives. Such people see no intrinsic nor transcendental value to life and vainly pursue all manner of “pleasures”, invariably feeling lost, empty, despondent, and/or angry at the end of the day. Think of the countless musicians, singers, and actors with almost infinite wealth who invariably commit suicide or overdose on narcotics. Or, we have countless examples, such as the subject of this article, where someone abuses, maims, and/or murders over a slight.
A clever play on words sums it up quite nicely:
Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.
Uncommon_Sense, I fully agree that we need a return to true faith and spirituality. I spent 6 years in seminary and 7 in active ministry. Now, I am am IT-guy but faith still infuses my work.
There is plenty of science backing up the toxins theory. Think of the toxic environment as the real, tangible presence of evil, disrupting Creation.
I do not mean this to argue with you; simply to suggest our beliefs are compatible.
Very best wishes!
Let me guess Andre Sinclair’s race….
A DuckDuckGo image search for “andre sinclair florida shooting”
turns up a specific profile. And a depressingly large number of criminal incidents.
It would never of happened in Britain or Japan as they have taken the handguns from the people. Not that I am advocating that here rather what I am advocating is mandatory mental tests before one can buy a handgun. But that would be common sense and its way over the head of the Far Right.
Vlad Tepes,
I know that sounds good in theory. The trouble is in actual practice which is ripe for abuse, malfeasance, ineptitude, discrimination, corruption, and inadequate resourcing.
Perhaps more importantly, however, such requirements will never impede a criminal who is determined to harm innocent victims. Criminals have no trouble acquiring handguns through extra-legal distribution channels (e.g. straw purchases, theft, and black-market purchases). And handgun purchasing laws have absolutely ZERO ability to stop criminals from using edge weapons or bludgeons to devastating effect on innocent victims.
Yes, a mental test to own a gun but not to drive a car. Commien sense.
@ VT the dumb; again with the stupid. Maybe we should have a mental health test before you can get on the keyboard, or drive a car, or VOTE, or my favorite, breath.
Between you and airhead occasional- cortex the country is doomed.
BTW, what planet do you live on? I really, really want to not go there.
This is what you get when you give obammy phones to trolls that live under bridges.
Because everyone knows exactly what would be next on Comrade Vlad Tepes’s wishlist: just as ‘sexual assault’ now includes everything from ‘unwanted eye contact’ to ‘misgendered pronoun use’, ‘mental illness’ would instantly include anyone who has ever cursed or had a speeding ticket.
You are as transparent as you are dishonest.
Everyone should watch some of the ” road rage videos ” that are on the Net. Some of the people shown should never be allowed to drive. They clearly have very aggressive attitudes, and it seems like they are a powder keg just waiting to explode, and will take any opportunity to vent their anger, no matter how slight the incident that provoked them.
That kind of ass doesn’t need a gun. His mind is the dangerous weapon.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with another individual relaying his road rage story. He travels extensively for his job which entails crossing many state lines where he is legal-not legal with his carry permit. He said he leaves his weapon in plain sight when he is in his vehicle. An officer in one state pulled him over for something minor. He realized his weapon was on the dash and told the officer about it first. Officer’s reply was as long as it stays there during their conversation, everything was fine.
His rage story was someone behind him was upset at his driving display and got out of his vehicle at a signal light and walked forward toward him. At the window, the moment he spied the weapon on the console, he turned around and went back to his vehicle without a word spoken. Sometimes, you can let the weapon do the talking even without shots fired.
Can someone please explain to me what exactly is being “cut off” in traffic.
It is an overused term describing every sing case of road rage I have ever seen but I still have know idea what it means.
Slow drivers or those the won’t use turn signals irritate me but I can’t recall ever being “cut off”.
It can vary, but in general it’s aggressive driving that can cause someone to have to hit the brakes to avoid colliding with the aggressive driver…
No contact no foul. Cut off is a non issue.
What you describe is mandatory driving in Atlanta.
We don’t know who shot first, just that the aggressor was able to get off lethal shots. Obviously, we prefer our shots to stop the threat before he hits us. Best defense may well have been a long slow roll without stopping, leaving “get the hell out of there” space in front of his car, hard breaking so BG moves ahead, get Plate# change directions. Never go to your house with BG following: your giving them a come back later advantage or pulling family into a bad situation now.
Don’t screw around with road rage asshats: change direction (but stay in populated area). Video his following through a few turns, or hostile car movements. if followed, you know its a bigger problem. Time to get on the phone 911. Don’t play bumper cars: even with a little seperation, you can pull up close to a big business and your family then you bail inside. Witnesses in public places can be a deterrent. Draw when threatened but don’t expose it to the threat (while in a vehicle) until you use it.
^^ This is the best advice for dealing with ragers.
Actually we know Sinclair shot first as per witnesses and the police reports.
Denver has horrible drivers. All the people moving there have brought their driving culture with them. So you have aggressively driving Cali and New England next to Midwest and Texans. Colorado’s roads used to be relatively calm, tip your hat. That’s long gone until you get far away from Denver.
…And I thought Massholes, Connecti-****, and Rhode Island drivers 🚗 were bad! Usually it’s an angry, 😠 rogue local police officer, or MA state trooper that goes off on a driver…Bad or NOT…Medford, MA. about a year or 2 ago, a local police Sgt. went Judge Dread on some poor out of town guy who was lost, trying to find his relatives place, and in a unfamiliar rotary…He became confused, and went the wrong way…He was pulled over by Officer. Friendly, berated, and then threatened at gun 🔫 point by Officer. Vendetta…Who threatened to “blow out his brains if he ever pulled a stunt like that in his town again! ” All caught on the mans Windshield mounted Traffic videocam! Great MA. T&G news!
I’d be curious to know if this 22 year old legally owned the firearm he used to murder this veteran and father.
I’m sure his family is telling the news media right now that he was an upstanding young citizen turning his life around.
Now if the tables were turned and it was a white guy who killed a black guy, the media would be talking about how racist this is. But it’s funny that when it’s a black man that murders a white man there is no mention of race.
sadly the guy was legally carrying….
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