Police: Kids in both cars during Seattle road-rage incident
SEATTLE -- Children were present in both cars involved in a road-rage incident that ended with a drawn gun and one arrest Friday afternoon in North Seattle, according to the Seattle Police Department.
The incident started around 4 p.m. on I-5 near Lynnwood when a man and his girlfriend – who aren’t from around here and didn’t know where they were going – were following behind an acquaintance’s car.
According to the police report for the incident, the suspect’s car merged in between the man and his girlfriend and their acquaintance’s car. And, that’s where the victims’ and the suspect’s stories diverge.
The victims – who had children in the car with them – would later tell officers they tried to get around the suspect in order to keep following their acquaintance, but the suspect wouldn’t let them in.
They said the suspect was driving aggressively, so they ended up following him to report the incident to police.
According to the report, the suspect – who had a woman and their 8-month-old child in the car with him – and the victims parked in the 2100 block of North 140th Street.
The victims told officers the suspect got out of his car and pointed a gun through the passenger window. The boyfriend said he got out to confront the suspect and protect his girlfriend, and a fight ensued.
The boyfriend told officers he was able to disable the man’s gun by pushing the slide back. He said the suspect tried to drive off while he was hanging onto his car, causing him to fall and cut himself.
Meanwhile, the suspect called police from Greenwood Avenue North in order to report the incident himself.
The suspect and the woman with him told officers the suspect was enraged and tried to run them off the road multiple times while on I-5. They said they were terrified because their 8-month-old was in the backset, and the victim was acting crazy and following them.
According to the report, the suspect didn’t mention a gun until officers asked him where it was. He told them he put it into his other car while dropping their child off before returning to Seattle to report the incident.
The suspect told officers he took the gun out of his holster and put it into his hoodie pocket in case he was going to need it while confronting the victim.
He said he took it out and pointed it at the ground when the victim came after him but never pointed it directly at anyone. He said the victim grabbed the gun at one point and said now he could shoot the suspect.
The suspect told officers he tried to get back in his car instead of confront the victim, but the victim attacked him immediately.
After discussing the incident, officers arrested the suspect, and he was booked into King County Jail for investigation of harassment.
The case has been referred to the City Attorney’s Office.
The incident started around 4 p.m. on I-5 near Lynnwood when a man and his girlfriend – who aren’t from around here and didn’t know where they were going – were following behind an acquaintance’s car.
According to the police report for the incident, the suspect’s car merged in between the man and his girlfriend and their acquaintance’s car. And, that’s where the victims’ and the suspect’s stories diverge.
The victims – who had children in the car with them – would later tell officers they tried to get around the suspect in order to keep following their acquaintance, but the suspect wouldn’t let them in.
They said the suspect was driving aggressively, so they ended up following him to report the incident to police.
According to the report, the suspect – who had a woman and their 8-month-old child in the car with him – and the victims parked in the 2100 block of North 140th Street.
The victims told officers the suspect got out of his car and pointed a gun through the passenger window. The boyfriend said he got out to confront the suspect and protect his girlfriend, and a fight ensued.
The boyfriend told officers he was able to disable the man’s gun by pushing the slide back. He said the suspect tried to drive off while he was hanging onto his car, causing him to fall and cut himself.
Meanwhile, the suspect called police from Greenwood Avenue North in order to report the incident himself.
The suspect and the woman with him told officers the suspect was enraged and tried to run them off the road multiple times while on I-5. They said they were terrified because their 8-month-old was in the backset, and the victim was acting crazy and following them.
According to the report, the suspect didn’t mention a gun until officers asked him where it was. He told them he put it into his other car while dropping their child off before returning to Seattle to report the incident.
The suspect told officers he took the gun out of his holster and put it into his hoodie pocket in case he was going to need it while confronting the victim.
He said he took it out and pointed it at the ground when the victim came after him but never pointed it directly at anyone. He said the victim grabbed the gun at one point and said now he could shoot the suspect.
The suspect told officers he tried to get back in his car instead of confront the victim, but the victim attacked him immediately.
After discussing the incident, officers arrested the suspect, and he was booked into King County Jail for investigation of harassment.
The case has been referred to the City Attorney’s Office.
What a bunch of dopes.
Idiots.
This is clearly spun to lobby against concealed weapons. Â I would highly question the accuracy of the reporting. The stupidity is almost unbelievable, even for this day and age. Â They've spun it to appear as though 2 gun owners with small children would wave their guns around like angry cowboys over a traffic snafu. Â I'd say there is likely more to this story - if it's true at all they're probably all under 20 and speak with thick accents.
@Obewise You must be a FOX lover...what an idiot...
There is so much stupidity and epic fail here that it's hard to know where to even start.
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So, how about we start with the victims? Those would be the small children in the backseats of both vehicles, not the morons in either front seat who are responsible for protecting the children, keeping them safe from harm, and leading by example how to behave like civilized human beings.
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Moron No. 1 righteously blusters about wanting to protect his girlfriend (by jumping out of a car and physically confronting someone he just described as crazy), with no mention of protecting his child(ren), by driving away after Moron No. 2 stopped.Â
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As noted in the article, they give two vastly different accounts of what happened. But each looks equally moronic in both versions, and each made at least six different appallingly poor choices that continued and escalated this idiotic encounter.Â
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Make this one easy, officers: everyone in both front seats, suspects; everyone in both backseats, victims. Everyone in both front seats, mind-bogglingly stupid and utterly lacking in good judgment and common sense; everyone in both backseats, probably each with higher IQ individually than all four imbeciles combined.Â
It sounds to me like neither party was innocent in this altercation.
actually, it was kind of strange that the 'victim' followed him into a parking lot and walked over to his window. Do you ever expect a calm conversation to occur in such a setting? It's not super surprising that the person would be defensive, although pulling out a gun goes a bit far. The first party should have just taken a photo of the car or recorded the license plate and called police.
The guy who pulled out the gun, loses. There is absolutely no reason to pull a gun in this instance. Aaaand the myth of the "responsible gun owner" lives on.
Is it just me or is this story extremely confusing?
Ugh, he said, she said. If you're gonna be a fool and get involved in road rage then man up about it. It's like pulling your sister's hair and when she pinches you for it you run and get mom.
"was able to disable the gun"? Good grief, you can't tell your story if you are dead.
So what was more important to the victim, following their friends or following the suspect becoming the victim? Take the plate number and call the police, end of story.
 @Beam_Me_Up What do you mean?? Most of the times we follow friends somewhere in separate cars or vice versa, whomever is following invariably gets ticked off at some random motorist and breaks off from our planned evening with no notice whatsoever to chase down idiots who are furious with us and may or may not be armed.Â
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Is this not normal behavior or something?Â
Dumb, and dumber.
No matter which story is true here, why would you pull off the road (it doesn't say either party was forced off) and talk with someone that was harrassing you? My first instinct would be to get away from the other car and if they kept following me and harrassing me I would drive to the closest town and find a police station to pull into. Never would I willingly pull off the road and try to talk with them!
Sucks that idiots can have kids. The guy with the gun needs his permit taken away if he has one. Not the proper use of a firearm for sure.
Throw the book at both of them. Lifetime sentence.Â
You have a gun and not a cellphone? Both of these geniuses need anger management.
As soon as the "aggressiveness" of the offending driver is noted and actually continuing to create a larger situation, get on the CP and call the police to report. It makes absolutely no sense to risk any physical confrontation.
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I have had to follow someone showing me the way to their place, and got separated by a couple of cars, but still managed to keep them in view without having to resort to what this guy did. And he was doubly stupid doing this while family in car with him. If you got a gun, and you carry it with you, and you have a permit, fine, that's you gig, but as soon as you pull it on someone, you had better be darn sure that you have a "LEGAL" basis for that action, or you will be the one going to jail.
 @WSims007 Reading this, it doesn't seem as if there's enough IQ points between the four adults to have checked to ensure both vehicles have cellphones with enough battery power AND each other's numbers confirmed.Â
I'm guessing that even if you lost your lead car, as that can happen to any two vehicles especially in heavier traffic, you were probably intelligent enough to ensure you had a way to contact one another if you did get split.Â
 @MargeGundersonÂ
We had the means, but didn't really need them. Besides, Unless there is any physical contact between the vehicles, I find that there is no need to to "get one up" on the other. Once there was one guy who really got upset that I was ahead of him, but all I did was to wave my cell phone and he went away.
 @WSims007 You 'had' to follow someone?
 @Rockberry Yes, my son down in California on the freeway to get to their new place on our first trip to see him and his family, during the early part of the rush hour(s).
Oh no...not another tough guy with a gun.. Â probably just a law abiding citizen normally
 @cyclops At least he didn't fire it... but he should never have take it out of the holster and kept on driving.
Sure glad he had a gun to protect his family with, too bad he didn't have a brain!
***Partial Story Alert***
Nobody of the media persuasion thought to inquire if the suspect was carrying the weapon legally???
 @Throbbinhood If you were trying to shock us all into near cardiac failure, you would have had much better luck going with ***Full Story Alert***
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I think they both need a time out. Go to your separate rooms!
LOLÂ HELLO, Back off from the road rager and call your friend and catch up later you dumb idiot. What, is your friend going to keep driving away into the sunset to never return!??Â
 @KeithB If the morons in either car were your buddies, wouldn't you be tempted to keep driving away into the sunset to never return? :^DÂ
(My friends can do dumb things every bit as well as I can, but our bonehead moments don't put each others' or our children's lives in danger.)
 @MargeGunderson That is true, I actually thought of that after I typed that haha
Road rage baffles me. Â People get mad and yell and scream because someone is going too slow or cutting them off. Â Please... like anyone is not guilty of doing that. Â If you have never cut anyone off or driven like an idiot at any point in your life, maybe then you would have a right to get mad. Â Driving and participating in a road rage pursuit with children in the car is endangering their lives and others. Â Is it worth it? Â Do you really need a gun? Â Sounds like these two people were looking for a fight. Â Good luck with that. Â Chill out.
 @keri555 I have been forced off the road while riding my motorcycle(after being chased for several miles) and I was glad I had my Glock 19 with me, as 4 guys piled out of their truck with baseball bats. They said that I had cut them off and now I was going to pay. (I passed them on a two lane highway, crossing the dashed yellow lines and completing my pass well ahead of them.)
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I told them to get in their truck and leave. I had already called the police at that time (using a mic in my helmet) I also had the incident on film. They refused to leave and started walking towards me. I pulled my piece, pointed it directly at them and told them to stop or I would shoot. They left, I waited for police to arrive. I gave police the video and they later arrested the owner of the truck for assault with a deadly weapon.
@Jalharad Sure you don't work in Hollywood?Â
They both sound like idiots. Â
Both parties are likely guilty of crimes during the incident yet the police only arrest one of them.
 @DontTreadonMeÂ
The one who raised the weapon gets the first drop. Story is also incomplete as to which/who was guilty of driving infractions during the period.
The way this is written makes it very confusing. Switching back & forth from "suspect" to "victim" but refering to the same person is difficult to follow. Either way, it's a he said / she said type of scenario so good luck to the officers & prosecutors to figure out which way it really happened. Wonder what the "acquaintance" has to say about it. Personally I think both driver's should be ashamed of their behavior.Â
 @katiemcc Both are victims of their emotions and could have used better judgment. But the "suspect" wins the Policeman's prize for pulling a gun. Really - do we really need so many guns? They needlessly escalate situations.Â
Bunch of wizards
To many people think that everything in front, behind, and on the side belongs to them. Â No one else matters.