Road Rage: Washington Family Returning From Coast Shot at by Convicted Armed Robber, Court Records Say

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A family of five from Camas, Washington, was on the way home from Cannon Beach last month when a driver fired into the car several times, narrowly missing three children in the backseat, newly released court records show.

The frightening encounter took place on the evening of April 6 on U.S 26 near the Northeast Brookwood Parkway exit in Hillsboro, according to an arrest warrant affidavit written by Hillsboro police Officer Sufyan Sher and filed in Washington County Circuit Court.

A man and woman were in the front seat and their two sons, ages 9 and 11, and daughter, 8, were in the back of the family’s Ford Flex.

The man told investigators that a Land Rover SUV was ahead of them when the driver “stomped the brakes” as the cars were in the left lane heading toward Portland. The man said he drove onto the lefthand shoulder, passed the Range Rover, moved back into the left lane and then merged into the right lane.

The driver of the Range Rover kept pace with the family’s car. The family’s youngest child told investigators the Range Rover “sneaked into our lane.” The girl said she “peeked” into the other car and saw the man “rolling down a window and the first thing I saw was the gun.”

One of her brothers also saw it, according to court records.

The driver then fired at least four times at the family’s car.

The girls’ father said he thought his daughter had been struck, “however later learned it had barely missed her and all the other family members.”

The father told police he “started to hear shots, but it did not register with him until his driver side window shattered,” according to his account in court records.

He “immediately slowed down, pulled over and checked on his children,” court records say.

The driver sped off. No one in the family was injured.



Investigators found four bullet holes from a small-caliber gun in the Ford Flex. Bullet fragments were removed from the driver’s side door, cushions in the back seat and the rear passenger door on the driver’s side.

Hillsboro police investigators said they later identified the motorist as Carl Ryon Anthony Sehy, 33, who according to court documents lives in a Pearl District apartment in Portland.

Sehy appeared Monday in Washington County Circuit Court on allegations of attempted second-degree murder, felon in possession of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon.

Police linked Sehy to the road rage incident with the help of another motorist who called police to report that the driver of the Land Rover was driving recklessly and had thrown a drink at her car. Using the partial license plate number she provided, two Hillsboro police officers tracked the car to Sehy, according to court records.

The Range Rover, according to court records, turned out to be the same one Sehy had called Portland police about earlier this year after someone broke into it and took personal items.

The arrest warrant affidavit said Portland police last year received a tip that Sehy is “always armed with a 9mm gun.”

Sehy was convicted in 2009 of robbery after he and another man held up the bar at the Colwood Golf Course on Northeast Columbia Boulevard in Portland. Sehy and another man ordered the bartender to empty the till at gunpoint, then left him hog-tied face-down on a bathroom floor, authorities said. The victim eventually managed to call 911 with his hands tied behind his back.

Sehy was convicted of first-degree robbery and second-degree kidnapping. He was sentenced to nearly a decade in prison.

During his sentencing hearing, Sehy stuck out his tongue at his victim and winked and nodded when the victim asked, during the proceeding, if he planned to make a career out of crime.

The man whose car was shot on U.S. 26 told investigators the violent encounter changed his life. His children suffer nightmares, his wife struggles with getting into the car to go anywhere and he has trouble sleeping.

He told police “how the shots fired at his vehicle were intended to kill and were not a message,” he said.