A Moment of Road Rage Changes Lives Forever

This one goes out to the hotheads of the highway, to the road warriors who approach driving as if it were competitive blood sport, who react with shouted obscenities and shaken fists to every brush and near-miss. Consider it a lesson in how rapidly stakes can escalate, how quickly a routine urban encounter can tumble out of control.

It was three weeks ago today, the first Sunday of May, a little before noon. Headed east on U.S. 50 in a sedan were Timothy and Nancy Mann and their 28-year-old son, Michael. To celebrate her birthday, Nancy Mann had been taken out for crepes. Now the family was headed home.

Donald R. Bell and his 15-year-old son also were on the road that day, looking for a hobby shop. Their plan was to repair the boy’s motorized scooter and then go to a shooting range for some target practice. That, the attorney would say later, explained the pistol Bell was carrying in his pocket.

Bell had been given faulty directions. He left U.S. 50, realized he was headed into heavy surface street traffic, decided to hop back on and drive east to the next exit. This was at Sunrise Boulevard, on the eastern side of metropolitan Sacramento, where the Sierra foothills begin to come into view. There’s a big billboard near the onramp, advertising a cellular telephone service.

“Decisions, Decisions, Decisions,” the sign says.

As Bell pulled his pickup into traffic on the six-lane highway, he apparently cut in front of the Mann vehicle. Later he would say he thought the sedan had revved up and closed in on him. Nancy Mann would offer a different account, maintaining that Bell had forced her husband to slam on the brakes. Of course, such particulars would make little difference in a saner society, in a society where soft words like “merge” and “yield” still carried meaning.

After the near-miss, the motorists found themselves alongside each other. Apparently neither of them--Mann a 53-year-old lineman for the municipal power district, Bell a 52-year-old construction worker for the port--could let it go. There were harsh words shouted. There were hand gestures flashed. And then the Mann vehicle pulled away, and it all might have been over.

Three miles later the Manns exited at Hazel Avenue. Bell did the same, still looking, he would explain later, for that hobby shop. He stopped his truck at the offramp signal about 20 feet behind the Manns. Both drivers got out. Nancy Mann heard Bell taunting, “Come on, come on.” Other witnesses heard him telling Mann: “Get back in your car. Get back in your car.”

The pistol came out. Mann approached Bell. The gun now was aimed at Mann’s chest. Accounts vary, but Mann either took a roundhouse swing at Bell or made a grab for the gun. Bell was struck. The gun went off. Mann fell to the ground, shot in the head.

“You killed him!” Nancy Mann heard Bell’s 15-year-old boy shout from the truck. She watched her own son try to clear the blood out of his father’s mouth.

“My husband really looked blue,” she would tell an officer moments later. By now an ambulance crew was carrying away her husband. “Is he dead? Oh, please God. Is he all right? Where are they taking him? I can’t believe this is happening. We were just out today to celebrate my birthday. We were just having a nice Sunday brunch. Is my husband dead?”

He was.

The story, though, does not end there.

Bell, who insisted he never meant to shoot Mann, was arrested for investigation of manslaughter. He spent a night in the County Jail and then posted bail. He was worried by reports that prosecutors had not ruled out bumping up the charges to murder. A Vietnam veteran, Bell had been exposed to Agent Orange. He told his attorney that he had developed lymphoma. He said he did not want to die in prison.

Last Sunday, a few minutes after 10 a.m., a 911 dispatcher took a call from a cellular telephone user, which by routine was recorded on tape. An abridged transcript follows.

Dispatcher: 911.

Caller: Uh. My name is Donald R. Bell. I was involved in that Hazel incident that happened two weeks ago.

Dispatcher: Uh, which Hazel incident, sir?

Bell: The fatality, the shooting.

Dispatcher: Uh-huh.

Bell: I am heading out there right now. And I am going to serve justice on myself.

Dispatcher, excitedly: What are you going to do?

Bell, softly: I am going to kill myself.

Bell spoke mostly in a dull, flat monotone, his voice breaking only once or twice. He gave the female dispatcher telephone numbers where his wife and a stepson could be reached. She tried to talk him down and, at the same time, coax out his whereabouts.

Bell: I’m one mile from Hazel.

Dispatcher: OK, hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you eastbound or westbound?

Bell: I’m going east.

Dispatcher: OK, you are eastbound. But why? Why? Why?

Bell: I just want to say. . . .

Dispatcher: OK--

Bell: I am so sorry for everything that has happened.

Dispatcher: And everybody understands that. Everybody understands that. Everybody understands that. But that’s no reason to go do this.

Bell: Yes, it is.

Dispatcher: What kind of vehicle are you in?

Bell: I have brought such terrible misery.

Dispatcher: Right, right. Donald--

Bell: I acted in self-defense. . . .

Dispatcher: OK. Now. OK, Donald. I understand everything that you are saying. But I really don’t think that that’s a good idea, because it is just going to add to everything. You don’t want your wife to have to go through more, right?

Bell: It’s killing us right now.

Dispatcher: Right, but just, you know, it can all be taken care of.

Bell: I just ask God for his forgiveness.

Dispatcher: He will. He will.

Bell: He won’t.

Dispatcher: He will.

Bell, audibly exhaling: I am here.

The telephone signal went to dial tone. Bell had hung up. The dispatcher dialed back Bell’s cell number. The telephone rang four times before a computerized voice answered: Hello. The PCS subscriber . . . is currently unavailable. Please record your message after the tone. . . .

Bell had parked his truck at the top of the Hazel Avenue offramp. Shortly after Mann had been killed, somebody had placed a small pile of river stones and paper flowers at the exit ramp. Now witnesses saw Bell walk over to the makeshift memorial and sit down. It was there he took his life with a single shot to the head.