2014 in Review: Deadly Road Rage, Deadly Soccer Rage, and Mob Rage that Nearly Killed Steven Utash

Lily Flemming, 6, made a made a heartbreaking discovery – her daddy wasn’t made of iron – after her father, Derek, was shot in a deadly road rage encounter. (Photo: Derek Flemming Memorial Facebook Page)

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In the end, Steven Utash forgave the five people who admitted to kicking and hitting him in a mob attack last April that caused already troubled race relations to fester.

Utash, a Clinton Township tree trimmer without health insurance, accidentally struck a young child who had darted into traffic last April on Detroit’s west side. Utash, who is white, stopped to help the boy and was viciously attacked by a group of young black men. His injuries left him in a medically induced coma for 10 days, clinging to life.

More than 4,600 donors, many of them strangers, raised $188,775 to pay his medical bills in what became a global outpouring of support for Utash and his family.

Utash wrote in a poignant open letter after he had healed that the financial help made him feel “important and special;” the “love of strangers” buoyed him past the wrongs that had been done to him; and – astonishingly, given the severity of his injuries – his ordeal had been worth it because he experienced the love of humankind “in its purest form.”

The story was told around the globe and some of the top voices in the civil rights and race relations movements weighed in. After five defendants accepted a plea deal, a judge admonished one of them: You need “someone to beat the hell out of you when you’ve made a mistake,” underscoring a common problem in his court – too many black defendants who never knew their fathers.

Patch.com wrote more than two dozen stories about the topic. Here are some of them:

• Online Donations Pour In As Man Beaten by Mob Clings to Life: How to Help
• Police Looking at Race As Possible Motive in Beating of White Motorist
• ‘Night of Healing’ Planned for Motorist Who Was Viciously Attacked – And for Detroit
• Hate Charges Possible in Mob Attack on Man Who Struck Youth With Pickup
• Teen Called Instigator in ‘Savage Beating’ of Steve Utash
• Juvenile Charged Under ‘Ethnic Intimidation’ Statute in Utash Beating
• Lawyer: Teen Charged in Mob Beating Acted in Spur of the Moment, Not Out of Hate
• Jesse Jackson Decries Mob Attack as Driven by ‘Hatred,’ ‘Alienation’ and ‘Desperation’
• Steve Utash Awakens from 10-Day Coma
• Defendants Bound Over for Trial; Beating Victim Takes Bad Turn
• Utash, Victim of Mob Attack, to be Transferred to Rehab Center
• Steven Utash Still Has No Memory in Mob Attack
• Suspect Free on Bond Says He’s Praying for Steven Utash’s Recovery
• Utash Son Says He Was Stripped of Cash, But It Wasn’t from Fundraiser
• Victim in Vicious Mob Attack Headed Home
• Teen Apologizes, Gets a Year in Jail and Probation in Utash Beating
• ‘Not One of Them Cared’: Utash Brother in Mob Attack Sentencing’
• All Five Defendants in Utash Beating Have Taken Plea Deals
• Judge to Utash Defendant: You Need ‘Someone to ‘Beat the Hell Out of You’
• Your Takeaways: Did Steven Utash Get Justice?
• In Poignant Letter, Steve Utash Says ‘Pure Love’ Worth Price of Attack

Soccer Ref Died After Single Deadly Punch

In two other crimes allegedly resulting from uncontrolled rage, children in two families were left fatherless.

In April, an afternoon recreational league soccer game turned deadly when a player about to be ejected from a match threw a single, deadly punch that dropped the referee to the ground.

Bassel Abdul-Amir Saad, 36, is accused of throwing the punch that killed 44-year-old John Bieniewicz, the father of two. Saad’s second-degree murder trial before Wayne County Circuit Judge Thomas Cameron is scheduled for Feb. 19, 2015.

Patch’s coverage includes:

• Rec League Soccer Ref in Critical Condition After ‘Terrifying’ Assault
• Michigan Soccer Ref Declared Dead After ‘Terrifying’ Assault by Player
• Global Response to Lethal Attack on Soccer Ref: ‘Why?’
• Saad, Accused in Soccer Ref’s Death, Bound Over for Trial
• Prosecutors Want 2005 Report of Soccer Fight in Trial of Man Accused of Fatally Punching Ref
• Man Accused of Fatally Punching Soccer Ref Gets New Judge

“I Thought Daddy Was Made of Iron”

Martin Edward Zale, 69, is expected to argue self-defense during his murder trial in the alleged road-rage shooting of a father of two on Sept. 2. Zale’s trial in Livingston County Circuit Court is scheduled for March 2.

He’s accused of shooting and killing Derek Flemming, 43, as the two argued over Zale’s driving at a stop sign in Genoa Township, not far from downtown Howell. Flemming and his wife, Amy, were on their way to pick up their children from their first day of school.

The shooting left two children – Lily, 6, and Julian, 8, – without a dad.

“Today is our beautiful daughter’s birthday,” Amy Flemming posted in an agonizingly difficult-to-read status update on a Facebook page established in her husband’s memory. “My heart aches in so many ways. Yesterday she told my mom that ‘a bullet killed Daddy. I thought he was made of iron.’

“Oh how horrible that young, innocent minds have to learn the reality that their parents are not invincible. I know Derek will be with us today celebrating the life of our daughter. I wish he could be here physically. With all my being I wish that.”

From the 2014 archives:

• Little Girl’s Heartbreaking Discovery after Her Daddy is Killed in Road Rage
• Driver Shoots Another in Apparent Road Rage
• Attorney Arguing Self-Defense in Deadly Road Rage: ‘Whole Story Has Not Been Heard’
• Report: Defendant, Victim Both Had History of Road Rage
• Defendant Bound Over for Trial after Emotional Testimony in Deadly Road Rage
• Deadly Road Rage Set for March 2 Trial

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