Dale Ward Harper, 59, learned his fate in a Winnipeg courtroom this week after previously pleading guilty to assault with a weapon and dangerous driving. “Drivers are not allowed to use their vehicles as weapons simply because they let their anger and frustration get the better of them,” District Court Judge Lee Ann Martin said in a written decision. “The circumstances of the offense in this case were certainly appalling and dangerous.” Martin rejected a request by Crown prosecutors to put Harper – who had no previous criminal record – behind bars for three years. Harper used his Ford F-150 truck to tail and repeatedly hit a smaller Hyundai Elantra driven by Kiana Jobo, with her father as a passenger, on the afternoon of December 17, 2020. Cell phone footage of Harper’s behavior was captured and widely circulated by the tabloid website TMZ. WATCHES | The video shows a woman’s car being rammed:
Tailgating Winnipeg woman hit repeatedly by angry driver
Kiana Jobo and her father were driving when an angry man they didn’t know followed them in his truck for 10 minutes, hitting their car from all sides. Jobo was driving west on Sargent Avenue when she crossed paths with Harper at the intersection of Sargent and Milt Stegall Drive. Harper honked at Jobo as she tried to make a left turn, and she “gestured in a manner that Harper considered rude,” Martin said. Harper drove after Jobo, ramming her car and sending it spinning. He then followed her for 10 minutes for about two miles through heavy traffic, ramming her car several more times, even pushing it into another vehicle and into the median, Martin said. Jobo managed to escape after driving into oncoming traffic towards the RCMP station on Portage Avenue. Harper drove home and was arrested by Winnipeg police a short time later. “He immediately admitted his actions, stating that he did not know what happened to him and that he had never done anything like this before,” Martin said. The impact of the crime on Jobo was severe. She told the CBC in an interview days after it happened that it had robbed her of her sense of security and left her traumatized — comments she and her father echoed when they spoke in court during Harper’s sentencing hearing. Kiana Jobo and her father escaped physical injury, but a Manitoba judge says the emotional toll taken by Harper’s road rage was long-lasting. (CBC) “It’s clear they’re extremely angry with Harper,” Martin said. “They believed at the time that Harper intended to kill them.” Martin noted that while the Jobos were not physically injured, the psychological impact was “long-lasting”. Manitoba Public Insurance wrote off Jobo’s car as a result of the damage.
“Kind, caring” Special Olympics volunteer
Harper was a career military man until he retired due to ill health a few months before he committed the crime. “He is described as a kind, caring person, who helps his neighbors regularly and has been a volunteer with the Special Olympics since 2011,” Martin said. Harper could not explain why he did what he did, the judge said. He noted that he immediately began anger management counseling after the incident. “Harper is deeply remorseful for his actions. He apologized in court and shared that every night he wakes up at 2 a.m. thinking about his actions,” Martin said. Lawyer Paul Cooper argued that Martin should sentence Harper to years in prison because of the “high rate of anger in Winnipeg” and the need to show others that it will not be tolerated. Martin said there is no evidence that road rage is prevalent in the city. Harper’s actions were not “planned and deliberate,” he found. “Given his lack of prior history, his lifetime of worthy pro-social behavior and his uncharacteristic actions, along with the advisory report filed in court, I find that his behavior was not planned. “Rather, it was a sudden, uncontrollable outburst of anger that took Harper a while to get over,” Martin said. Harper must also serve one year of supervised probation after his sentence ends, which includes a requirement to attend counseling as directed by his probation officer.
