Well I don’t think we should ask a Titusville Fire Inspector, Mark Whorton.
Apparently the fire inspector was involved in a road rage incident and the incident got out of hand and the fire inspector took further action and shot a man in the chest.
Now if you can believe it, they both are blaming each other for the incident.
Anyway, Michael McClarin was shot in the chest and once he was shot he started walking around asking for help. Neighbors of course called 911 and reported the incident and talked about how much blood McClarin left every where he walked. They also told the dispatcher that McClarin had a finger sticking in the bullet hole while he was waiting for EMS to arrive.
Hopefully it wasn’t the Titusville Fire Department that responded. I don’t think I would want to be transported by them after one of them just shot me. But that’s just me.
Even though the fire inspector had a concealed weapons permit, I still would like to think that a member of any fire department would be able to control using a fire arm especially over something as stupid as a road rage incident.
There was no felony in progress, there was no weapon presented to Whorton to make him think his life was in danger, just a road rage incident.
Now the real kicker is the fire department talks about how awesome of an employee Whorton is for the department. Since he is such an awesome employee, the department placed him on paid leave
(yes paid leave for shooting a man in the chest)
until the investigation is complete.
I guess at some point during the 911 call the dispatcher asked Whorton something about McClarin. And Whorton responded by saying, he doesn’t want to talk to me because I’m the one that shot him. Then Whorton went on the say that McClarin was highly agitated.
Really highly agitated? I would think more like in fear of his life and running from house to house trying to get help. I also think I would be a little more than agitated if I just got shot.
No charges have been filed yet according to the media and the police have called in a consult from the State’s Attorney Office.
Charges or not, I hope and pray that I never have to be in Titusville. I would never want a man in charge of my life knowing that he shot someone over a road rage incident.
I guess the serve and protect motto did not apply in this situation.
One would like to think a Public Safety Official would have enough common sense to call the police to deal with the road rage incident. Or even better yet if he was being approached by someone and was that scared, why did he not drive away?
For the life of me this makes no sense.
Another senseless crime and no one arrested as of this time.
Granted both men denied the facts and blamed each other for the incident but to shoot a man for road rage but one would think that shooting an unarmed man would be pretty easy to figure out.
Another reason Whorton should not be allowed back to the fire department. If he cannot even tell the truth over what happened in this incident then could he be trusted enough to work as a firefighter? If there was a questionable incident, would Whorton be truthful if he made an error? Or would he lie and try to cover it up?
At some time in this investigation Whorton stated that McClarin reached in his car and hit him in the head. McClarin denied every being inside of Whorton’s vehicle.
I guess we will have to wait and see what the State Attorneys Office has to say about this case.
