GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Grand Rapids woman is facing a misdemeanor assault charge after she slapped a woman in another car in a road rage incident on July 13.
The confrontation was caught on camera and posted on a neighborhood Facebook page.
Kalinda Jacobs, 65, was less than apologetic when Target 8 reached her at her home on Grand Rapids’ northwest side.
“I wouldn’t even call it a slap,” Jacobs told Target 8 as she stood on her porch.
“If that’s what she wants to say, she’s a drama queen,” Jacobs said of the woman she hit. “It didn’t even leave a mark.”
The conflict started when Jacobs aggressively brake checked Michael Nguyen’s Tesla as he drove through the Marsh Ridge Senior Community, a development off Lake Michigan Drive with a mixture of apartment buildings and condominiums.
“When I pulled out here, they were right on my butt,” Jacobs said of Nguyen. “You’re darn right I’m gonna brake check them.”
Nguyen and his fiancé had just grabbed take-out sushi after a stressful day and were headed home when they encountered Jacobs.
“It’s a shortcut to our house,” Nguyen told Target 8 of the retirement community. “It’s a lot safer instead of going on this roundabout.”
Nguyen said he was not aware that Marsh Ridge had consistent trouble with speeding drivers cutting through the senior development.
“The lady, she didn’t stop at the stop sign, and she just pulled out in front of us,” recalled Nguyen. “So, we tried slowing just a bit, but she was upset how close we were, so she brake checked us, causing us to brake very hard.”
Then, Jacobs just stopped.
“It wasn’t safe for us to go around,” said Nguyen. “And then, when we honked at her to keep moving forward, she got out of her car and started approaching us….She was yelling at me for speeding behind her, that I was tailgating her the entire time she was driving, which was for about two seconds.”
By that point, Nguyen said he was yelling too.
“I told her that I won’t speed anymore,” recounted Nguyen, who said he was driving around 18 miles per hour in the 10-mph zone. “I (told her) you cut me off and you need to get back in your car. You can let the property manager know if you have an issue, but I’m not dealing with this. This is absurd.”
Video from Nguyen’s cellphone shows Jacobs then walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle.
‘WHAT ARE YOU, CHICKEN?’
“What are you, chicken?” Jacobs asked Nguyen’s fiancé, who had rolled down her window.
“What do you want?” asked Nguyen’s fiancé incredulously.
“Get out of my car,” Nguyen ordered.
“Dumb (expletive)!” exclaimed Jacobs as she reached in and slapped Nguyen’s fiancé in the face.
“Hey! Hey! What the (expletive) was that?” yelled Nguyen as he exited his vehicle.
Later, when asked what she was thinking when she slapped Nguyen’s fiancé, Jacobs paused in thought.
“At that moment, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, here they have a Tesla,’” said Jacobs. “’They think their (expletive) don’t stink, and they know all the rules and laws.’ And they don’t.”
But Jacobs acknowledged she was the aggressor.
‘I KNOW I DID WRONG’
“I’m not trying to defend it,” said Jacobs. “I know I did wrong, but what she did was wrong too.”
Nguyen said he and his fiancé exited their vehicle after the slap, but only because they wanted to ensure Jacobs did not leave the scene.
It was at that point that Nguyen’s fiancé pushed Jacobs.
“The woman kept trying to attack (her),” explained Nguyen. “So (she) had to try to defend herself.”
Nguyen said Jacobs fled the scene before police arrived.
“Like, saying that we are being too chicken to do anything to her, we didn’t want to do anything,” Nguyen said. “We just wanted the cops to come because she did assault her at that time, and we had video footage and we wanted to take care of it that day.”
Grand Rapids police forwarded the case to the city attorney’s office, which authorized a misdemeanor assault charge against Jacobs Tuesday.
While jail time is virtually unheard of in a case like this, the charge is technically punishable by up to 93 days and/or a $500 fine.
Jacobs had not been informed of the criminal citation when Target 8 reached her Wednesday.
“They were going too fast for in here,” Jacobs continued. “They were on private property.”
The city of Grand Rapids confirmed that the streets of Marsh Ridge Senior Community are considered private.
Jacobs then went on to defend brake checking.
DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE BRAKE CHECK?
“Do you know many people in this world (brake check)?” asked Jacobs. “Where is it illegal? I’ve never heard of it being illegal.”
It’s true that brake checking on its own is not illegal in the state of Michigan.
However, if police witness it, they could cite you for careless driving.
Target 8 consulted three experts regarding the July 13 incident, all of whom strongly condemned the physical assault but also said Nguyen and his fiancé could have done more to de-escalate the situation.
“Why would you roll down the window in that circumstance?” questioned Dr. Ryan Martin, a psychologist and author who researches anger at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. “I was a little surprised (at that). That sounds a little like victim blaming, so I want to be careful about putting that out there, but what was the point there? You’re in a relatively vulnerable position when you’re there in your car and there’s someone walking around it. I would want to keep some of the barriers up.”
Martin, who’s been dubbed the “anger professor,” advises drivers to focus on their mission.
“I encourage people to essentially, when they’re driving, to remember their goal,” Martin said in a Zoom interview with Target 8. “My goal when I’m driving should be to get from point A to point B safely and maybe on time. But the on time is really secondary to the safety part. If that’s the case, then any angry, aggressive interaction with another driver doesn’t serve that goal.”
But Martin acknowledges that’s easy to say but could be tough to remember in the heat of conflict.
HIT PAUSE, AVOID EYE CONTACT, DON’T ENGAGE
“So, one of the goals for people has to be to figure out how do you, in the moment, find that pause button?” asked Martin, who said one method is rehearsing in your mind. “One way you can practice is by imagining how you would behave, right? Either you can think back on a situation and say, ‘What should I have done?’ Or you can just imagine if you were in a situation and think about, ‘How would I handle that?’ If you do that regularly, you’re likely to handle it well when faced with it.”
It’s a critical skill in an increasingly tense environment.
Gary Bubar of AAA-The Auto Club Group said nationwide, there are 20 to 30 road rage incidents annually in which shots are fired that result in injury or death.
“These folks don’t know each other,” Bubar said in a Zoom interview with Target 8. “For the most part, they’re just random occurrences that happen between drivers when one driver feels wronged. Best thing you can do in those situations is just let it go. You don’t know anything about that other driver. They may be having a bad day. They may be on their way to an emergency.”
The experts offered tips on how to avoid confrontations on the road.
“When somebody’s passing you and you want to flip them off or you want to yell at them, just don’t look at them,” advised Brandon Hewitt, attorney and chief operating officer at Michigan Auto Law. “Just keep your eyes forward. Don’t engage them.”
But if you feel threatened in a situation you cannot avoid, Hewitt said you should not go home.
“Go to a public place or drive to the police station,” Hewitt said. “Go somewhere where you’re going to be seen. Because most people, if they do want to confront you, they’re not going to do it in a public space.”
Reflecting on the July 13 incident, Nguyen knows he could have handled it better.
“I think if I spoke to her more respectfully, maybe it wouldn’t have escalated, but I was yelling at her that ‘this is crazy,’ and I didn’t want our sushi to go bad, you know,” he said, chuckling.
Jacobs was less introspective.
“Take Collindale or Burritt or Maynard,” she said, referring to nearby arteries. “You don’t come down in here. This is private property.”
Nguyen said he’s heeding that advice.
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