Jury Hears Summations in Road Rage Case

A 14-person jury heard closing summations Wednesday in the trial of Evan Potts, an Oceanside man arrested in in Long Beach that left Wantagh native Ian Sharrin dead in 2009. 

According to authorities, for two miles, Potts, then 22, and Sharrin, 34, were driving aggressively near each other on West Park Avenue, when Potts, who was driving a 2008 Nissan Altima, turned south on National Boulevard, made a U-turn and headed back toward West Park on May 15, 2009. Sharrin, driving a 1978 Porsche, ran a red light on West Park and blocked Potts's car.

According to witnesses, Sharrin, a Wantagh High School graduate, jumped out of his vehicle, pounded on the hood of the Nissan, and shouted and cursed at Potts. Potts tried to back up, but when a car blocked him he accelerated forward, knocking Sharrin to the ground and running over him, police said. Soon after, Long Beach police arrested Potts a block away.  

Potts was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

At a Mineola court before Judge Phillip Grella on Wednesday, Stan Kopilow, Potts’ attorney, characterized Sharrin’s hand marks on the driver’s side of Potts’ car as evidence he was trying to attack his client. But Assist. District Attorney Brendan Ahern said the marks were Sharrin’s last fruitless attempt to stop Potts from running him over.  

Kopilow said that Sharrin was in an “uncontrollable rage,” as he “chased and stalked” Potts for two miles.

“It was justified conduct to save himself,” Kopilow said of Potts’ actions.  

Ahern told the jury the bottom line in the case is that Potts clearly saw Sharrin standing at the front of the car’s driver’s side, heard his “blood curdling scream” and felt him crush Sharrin as he drove over him like a “human speed bump.” 

“Was it like a man was pointing a gun at his head?,” Ahern said. “No way … Ian Sharron didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have a knife. He didn’t have his hands around his neck.”

Key witnesses include a motorist directly behind Potts at National, an employee at the AT&T store at the southwest corner of National-West Park, an attorney in a third-floor office above the store, and two motorists who drove alongside Potts and Sharron as they headed down West Park.

As Sharrin stood in front of Potts' car, his last words, recorded on Potts’ cell phone, were: “Now what the [expletive] you gonna do?”

Said Ahearn: “He bet his life that Evan Potts wouldn’t gun it. But Ian Sharron was wrong.”