Road Rage and Beyond

There are "small-time" crime stories in my local newspapers that never get covered until the offender is sentenced. One example has been in both papers yesterday and today.

It concerns a now-27-year-old man named Kevin Blocker who knocked out a mail carrier, after failing to yield the right of way to the carrier, who was crossing a city street here in Saint Paul. This was back in 2018, so the offender was about 22 at the time. 

This is the intersection where Blocker first encountered the mail carrier:

According to the Star Tribune, Blocker was going fast enough (on the 25mph street) that the carrier doubted he would stop for him as he crossed. He did stop, though, and honked at the carrier, who paused in front of the car and said, "You need to yield to me." Then farther down the street, Blocker got out of his car, approached, and punched the mail carrier, as reported by a witness. 

Blocker is 240 pounds, while the mail carrier is much smaller and at least several decades older; as he fell, he hit his head on the concrete ground and lost consciousness, only waking up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The Pioneer Press reported that he required 12 stitches.

To make matters worse, Blocker tried to cover up his actions by filing a stolen-vehicle report on his car and then quickly selling the car, which led to the person he sold it to being arrested. Later in 2018, Blocker was convicted of drive-by shooting and second-degree assault for a Moorhead, Minnesota, shooting that wounded one person. He's currently in state prison for those charges.

He has now received a 5.5-year sentence for the mail carrier assault, and will begin that federal prison term when he ends his state incarceration in 2026.

Front Avenue is a classic too-wide street that encourages speeding and, therefore, failure to yield to pedestrians. As a driver on it who obeys the speed limit, I have been passed by other drivers, which is extremely dangerous on a city street that has intersections where cars can come from side streets and pedestrians can appear and have the right of way, as the mail carrier did.

Slow down! Speeding in the city doesn't save much time, if any, before you reach the next traffic signal. There are other people in this world whose lives matter.