Feb. 3 (UPI) — A bizarre case of road rage in Florida took an even stranger turn when a pickup driver backed his vehicle onto the car behind it.
Ocala police said witnesses reported Adalberto Aponte, 53, was “driving recklessly” in his Toyota Camry Wednesday before being stopped at a traffic light in Ocala, where he got out of his vehicle to confront the driver of the pickup truck in front of him.
Witnesses said Aponte got violent while confronting the 18-year-old driver of the pickup truck, who was accompanied in his vehicle by his girlfriend and their baby.
“The guy reaches in the vehicle and starts punching him in the face. The kid’s yelling, ‘Stop, I got an 11-month-old in here, stop, stop, stop,'” witness Bryon Buchanan told WESH-TV.
Police said the driver’s girlfriend tried to stop the attack by claiming to be armed.
“She decided she would have an outburst, saying, ‘We have a gun in the truck,’ thinking that would cause him to leave,” Ocala police Sgt. Cynthia Barnes said.
The man instead told the couple he was going to retrieve his own gun from his vehicle, and went back and started rooting through his Camry.
Police said the 18-year-old then threw the truck into reverse and parked the vehicle atop Aponte’s Camry.
No guns were found in either vehicle, police said.
Aponte, who was found to have had his license suspended in August for failing to pay child support, was arrested on charges of burglary of an occupied conveyance, battery, driving while license was suspended or revoked, and criminal mischief.
The pickup driver, who Aponte denied striking, was not charged.
