A just-retired California correctional officer died in a road-rage shooting. They’re on the rise

Lufino Reyes Mejorado was a good guy, his family says. The kind of guy who would pull over to help out another driver with a flat tire.

The 60-year-old Sacramento man had worked as a correctional officer at California State Prison, Solano, until 2018, when he retired with hopes of continuing his education to become a social worker and help homeless people.

Frances Mejorado Knox, his sister, said she was shocked to learn her brother was a victim of road rage, shot and killed Dec. 6 along Interstate 5 in Sacramento after an encounter with another driver that started several miles away on another freeway.

Driving is already an “inherently dangerous” activity that produces some anxiety that is exacerbated by our moods and what provokes us on the road, said Ryan Martin, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Martin’s research focuses on anger and the aggressive behaviors involved in road rage.

The daily stress we experience over running late, bad weather or slow traffic can result in drivers responding irrationally to others on the road. Martin believes two years of a global pandemic, divisive political discourse and provoking language repeatedly used on social media has left us “on edge.”

“There’s just a lot of anger right now,” Martin told The Bee. “And the road is the place where it’s really showing.

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