It’s uncommon to see two women involved in a violent road rage confrontation. But video has captured one female driver in South Los Angeles getting out of her vehicle with a crowbar on a one-way street. She then uses it to smash another woman’s vehicle before striking her with the weapon through the driver’s seat window. The victim, who sustained several injuries in the attack, is now calling for the suspect to be found and arrested by police.
Woman caught smashing vehicle’s headlights and windshield
On October 17 at around 4 a.m., an unnamed woman was caught on video allegedly attacking Samantha Baez-Vargas with a crowbar on 111th Street near Raymond Avenue, according to a report by FOX Los Angeles.
Footage taken from a cellphone by Baez-Vergas shows the road rage encounter starting with the woman in a red-purple outfit walking out of her black car that was stopped in the middle of the road after going in the opposite direction to Baez-Verga’s vhiecle. The report says the woman used the crowbar to smash the victim’s car, damaging its windshield, headlights, and driver’s-side window. The video shows the woman allegedly striking Baez-Vergas with the weapon through the window too.
Then when Baez-Vergas got out of the vehicle, the woman allegedly continued to assault her with the crowbar and bit her several times. Video from FOX 11 shows bruises and marks on the victim’s left shoulder, left abdomen, arm, and chest.
Baez-Vergas says the confrontation occurred after their cars could not move past each other on the narrow, one-way street. She claims that her vehicle was going the proper direction and that the woman was going in the wrong one, yet she still demanded that Baez-Vargas back up.
Baez-Vargas told the outlet in an interview, “I told her that it was a one-way street, that she could reverse. She was in the wrong and that’s when we started screaming at each other.”
“I didn’t know how to react. I was shocked. I didn’t know how to defend myself,” she recalled. “After the fact, I was in the hospital. I felt like I could have lost my life.”
She continued, “I thought she would stop and she didn’t. She smacked me in the head with the crowbar at that point, and she snatched my phone out of my hand.”
Detectives say they have identified the suspect and are searching for her
The report says that users on social media who have seen the video online have circulated the name of the alleged attacker. Reporter Gina Silva said that the victim’s family had posted the footage online, and commenters replied saying that they knew who the alleged attacker was and that she had done some similar things to them. Some also stated that she allegedly had a criminal record.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is in possession of the footage, believes that detectives have also identified the suspect and, at the time of writing, are still in the process of locating her. The outlet said that it has not yet released the name of the alleged attacker, since law enforcement as yet to disclose that information to the public.
Baez-Vargas’s mother, Elizabeth Vargas, is urging anyone with information on the suspect to come forward as authorities continue their investigation.
“Please do your job. This evil can’t be out there,” Vargas urged police. “Right now, it’s my daughter. So what’s going to happen next? Somebody else’s daughter?”
The department released a statement on the case: “South Los Angeles Station detectives have been actively investigating this case and have positively identified the suspect. Detectives are currently working to locate and apprehend her.”
