In 2017, two people were murdered in separate incidents – one in Michigan and one in Ohio – when teenagers threw rocks and sandbags from two highway overpasses along Interstate 75.
Kenneth White, 32, was murdered on October 18, 2017, when a 6-pound (2.7 kg) rock was thrown by a group of five teens: Mikadyn Payne, Trevor Gray, Alexzander Miller, Mark Sekelsky and Kyle Anger.
[1] The teenagers confessed to having thrown multiple rocks at cars driving south on I-75 from their position on the Dodge Road overpass in Vienna Township.
[2][failed verification] The five teenagers had gathered large rocks, one weighing 20 pounds (9.1 kg), from a dead-end street in Vienna Township, loading them into the flatbed of a pickup truck, before driving to the overpass where they were dropped onto cars as they passed below.
On Friday, October 20, upon hearing about the victim's death, the 5 teens exchanged text messages, including ones that said "We could go to prison for life for this, everyone lay low and no one rat us out!"
[15] [16] Marquise Byrd, 22, a resident of Warren, Michigan, was murdered on Interstate 75 on December 19, 2017 near Toledo, Ohio when four teenagers dropped a sandbag from a bridge onto the car in which he was a passenger.
However, she suspended those sentences in favor of brief terms in the Lucas County Youth Treatment Center in the hope that clemency would prepare them to go on to lead productive lives.
[26][27] Furthermore, Ohio began to require fencing on highway overpasses to prevent deaths and injuries caused by youths throwing rocks at vehicles.