Photo: 6abc.com
Police in Philadelphia say they receive at least one report of a road rage altercation a week. The latest occurred at the busy intersection of Levick Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, and saw one driver smash another man’s work van.
As is usually the case with this type of altercations, it started with a fender bender. The maroon sedan the attacker was driving was stopped at the lights and a white van rear-ended him. Cellphone footage obtained by another motorist was released to the Philadelphia Police and to the media. You will also find it at the bottom of the page.
In the video, you can see the driver of the sedan come out of his car to confront the driver of the van. The latter never steps out of his vehicle and there’s no way of knowing what the two talked, but you can hear screaming. It’s safe to assume whatever they had to say wasn’t particularly nice.
At one point, the driver of the sedan goes back to his car and returns with a baseball bat. Almost without any other warning (the sight of the bat alone should be enough warning, duh), he starts pounding on the windshield of the van, smashing it and the side mirror.
“The offender jumps out of the car with a baseball bat, runs up to the complainant's vehicle, smashes the driver side window out and knocks the mirror off,” said Philadelphia Police Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum tells 6ABC News.
In between hits to the car, the man also made time to threaten the van driver, but the Lieutenant wouldn’t go into specifics. Needless to say, the entire thing left the van driver very shaken up, as was apparent from his voice when he called 911.
“On top of that, he tried to flee the accident,” Rosenbaum adds. “The two vehicles were still stuck together. He caused more damage to the vehicle when he ripped the bumper off of the truck while trying to flee the accident.”
Police say the attacker caused “thousands of dollars” worth of damage to the van, which belongs to a local company.
In the video, you can see the driver of the sedan come out of his car to confront the driver of the van. The latter never steps out of his vehicle and there’s no way of knowing what the two talked, but you can hear screaming. It’s safe to assume whatever they had to say wasn’t particularly nice.
At one point, the driver of the sedan goes back to his car and returns with a baseball bat. Almost without any other warning (the sight of the bat alone should be enough warning, duh), he starts pounding on the windshield of the van, smashing it and the side mirror.
“The offender jumps out of the car with a baseball bat, runs up to the complainant's vehicle, smashes the driver side window out and knocks the mirror off,” said Philadelphia Police Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum tells 6ABC News.
In between hits to the car, the man also made time to threaten the van driver, but the Lieutenant wouldn’t go into specifics. Needless to say, the entire thing left the van driver very shaken up, as was apparent from his voice when he called 911.
“On top of that, he tried to flee the accident,” Rosenbaum adds. “The two vehicles were still stuck together. He caused more damage to the vehicle when he ripped the bumper off of the truck while trying to flee the accident.”
Police say the attacker caused “thousands of dollars” worth of damage to the van, which belongs to a local company.
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