Upper Moreland man arrested for road rage with weapon

NORRISTOWN – An Upper Moreland Township man was booked into jail on charges he brandished a handgun during a “road rage” incident and terrorized a woman and her 18-year-old daughter who were in another vehicle.

Mohammed Al Jumaili, 29, of the 3500 block of West Moreland Road, was sentenced in Montgomery District Court to serve 6 to 23 months in the county jail on charges of terroristic threats, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person in connection with the July 13, 2022, traffic altercation at the intersection of Welsh and Twining Roads in the Willow Grove neighborhood of Upper Moreland.

In a trial in March, a jury found Al Jumaili guilty of the charges.

Judge Steven T. O'Neill also ordered that Al Jumaili be on probation for three years after his release from prison. This means Al Jumaili will be under court supervision for approximately five years.

The judge rejected a defense request to allow Al Jumaili to serve his sentence under house arrest.

As a condition of the sentence, Al Jumaili is prohibited from possessing or carrying firearms while under court supervision. The judge ordered that Al Jumaili must have no contact with the victims and must participate in an anger management program.

During the trial, Assistant District Attorney Blair Rohlfing called the case “road rage,” adding that the victims were frightened during the incident.

Defense attorney George Griffith Jr. argued that it was a traffic accident and not a case of road rage.

During the trial, Griffith claimed that the driver of the second vehicle started the traffic dispute and that Al Jumaili felt threatened by her behavior and therefore felt the need to display the firearm.

The investigation began at approximately 11:09 a.m. on July 13, when Upper Moreland police responded to the area between Welsh Road and Twining Road in the Willow Grove neighborhood of Upper Moreland for a report of a man driving a blue SUV and pointing a gun at the caller, according to a criminal complaint filed by Upper Moreland Detective Francis Joseph Gallagher Jr.

The suspect's vehicle then fled west toward Blair Mill Road and police were given a partial license plate that linked the vehicle to Al Jumaili, court records show. Police subsequently found the vehicle outside a nearby Lowes Home Improvement store and Al Jumaili was inside the store.

Al Jumaili admitted to possessing a firearm and said the weapon was in his 2021 Kia vehicle. Al Jumaili voluntarily retrieved a black and silver Colt .45 caliber handgun from the vehicle and turned it over to police.

The gun had a magazine loaded with six .45-caliber rounds, Gallagher claimed. Al Jumaili had a valid license to carry a firearm at the time.

According to the affidavit, the victim identified Al Jumaili as the person who pointed the gun at her.

The victim told police she was on her way to work on Welsh Road with her daughter when a blue SUV driven by Al Jumaili pulled in front of her from Kimball Avenue into the right lane. The woman said she was unable to pull over and let the SUV get in front of her, and the driver of the SUV became irate and called her a derogatory name, the affidavit states.

The victim claimed that Al Jumaili decided to continue driving alongside her west on Welsh Road towards Twining Road.

“While she was in traffic, the defendant pulled out a gun and pointed it at her and her daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat and saying something about his neighborhood,” Gallagher wrote in the criminal complaint, adding that the woman “feared for her life.” “She ducked as her daughter reclined her seat to avoid being shot.”

The victim's daughter told investigators she was “afraid the defendant would shoot her and her mother.”

During an interview with investigators, Al Jumaili claimed he was on his way to Lowes to buy gardening equipment and as he was turning onto Moreland Road from his apartment complex, a silver sedan blocked his path just before a construction site. Al Jumaili claimed the occupants of the sedan began giving him the middle finger with their hands out the window.

“He admitted that he showed his gun to the occupants of the silver vehicle immediately after they cut him off,” Gallagher claimed, adding that the two vehicles stopped at a red light at the intersection of Welsh Road and Twining Road. “At that point, he took the gun out of the driver's side map pocket. He took it out of the holster so people would know it was a gun and held the gun at chest level while saying, 'Don't do that in my neighborhood.'

“He said the muzzle was not pointed at the silver sedan, he wanted to show them he had a gun and it had to be out of the holster so they could see it was a gun. When the light turned green, he sped off,” Gallagher claimed.

Al Jumaili allegedly stated that none of the victims threatened him, showed a weapon, or did anything else that suggested they might harm him. Al Jumaili claimed he was afraid of their driving style.

Originally published: August 23, 2024 at 11:03 am