Crime & Safety
Road Rage Incident Prompts Racial Slurs, Handgun
Female driver shouts racial epithets, threatens physical harm and points a gun at another motorist.
A road rage incident could've turned deadly after a woman who accidentally cut off a vehicle was threatened with violence, insulted with racial slurs and targeted at gunpoint by an irate driver.
According to River Forest police, here's how it happened:
The two female motorists were driving eastbound on North Avenue on May 9 when one of the drivers, a 56-year-old African-American woman from Chicago, nearly struck the car of the other driver while changing lanes.
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The driver of the nearly clipped car, a woman believed to be in her late 20s, honked her horn, rolled down the window of her Nissan Altima, hurled racial slurs and threatened to kill the other driver.
She then reached behind a car seat, picked up a handgun and aimed it at the woman's car, police said.
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Immediately after she was threatened, the victim drove to a nearby gas station on North Avenue and called police.
River Forest police are investigating the aggravated assault incident as a possible hate crime. No arrests have been made.
On Tuesday, River Forest Police Sgt. Michael Thornley said investigators have a description of the offender and her car, a dark Nissan Altima, and are looking to speak to "a person of interest."
