Most the time we only see one side of a road rage incident, usually from a vehicle equipped with a dashcam.
This isn’t one of those times as the Lake & McHenry County Scanner has posted two videos showing the perspectives of a road rage victim and that of the aggressor.
In the first clip, filmed by Bart Surroz, you can see him approach a red Jeep Wrangler as he films with his smartphone. As soon as he nears the driver’s side door, a man pulls a gun on him and yells at Surroz to get back into his vehicle. He ignores this command and instead goes to record the Jeep’s license plate. As he does this, the Jeep speeds away as Surroz says he’s going straight to police.
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Interestingly, the Jeep was equipped with a dashcam and it recorded the actions of driver Brian Schimian. It starts by showing him apparently traveling at a high rate of speed and failing to maintain lane control. He eventually catches up to Surroz’s MINI Cooper which is simply following the flow of traffic.
While there’s no audio in this particular clip, commenters claimed Schimian originally uploaded the video to Facebook with audio and this revealed he was continuously honking his horn. Surroz seemed to confirm this as he told the Lake & McHenry County Scanner “I thought I hit something or he was trying to alert me [by honking] that I’m dragging something behind my car.”
Following the incident, Surroz contacted police. However, he was reportedly told Schimian had a concealed carry permit and was “well within his rights to put the gun in my face because he told the cops that he was terrified of his life.”
Schimian wasn’t immediately arrested, but police continued to look into the incident. Yesterday, on Facebook, they announced Schimian had been arrested and charged with one count of disorderly conduct and one count of reckless driving. The Richmond Police Department went on to say the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office will be pursuing a “Class A charge of aggregated assault with a deadly weapon.”