Portland Police Bureau detectives say they’ve identified a suspect in the case of a road rage incident that took place in Northwest Portland just over two weeks ago.
The victim — who claims he was nearly run down, threatened with a baseball bat and then punched in the face by a man in a Hummer SUV — picked the suspect out of a photo line-up last week.
A spokesperson for the Police Bureau said this morning that,
“With the help of the victim and other witnesses, including alert BikePortland readers, we’ve identified a suspect in the case, but have not made an arrest yet. We believe he may live out-of-state. The investigation is ongoing.”
The Hummer was being driven without license plates or tags and the suspect is being charged with Assault IV which is a Class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum punishment of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Heh. This guy works in Downtown Vancouver. Saw him the day after the original posting doing a U-turn on Washington (a one-way) and 12th to park, then getting out of his hummer.
Wondered if it was him.
Stay classy, douchebag.
Alert Bikeportland readers?
Sweet!
Suuuweeeeet!
Cool. I saw a not-quite-the-same-blue-color H3 yesterday on my lunch ride and was wondering if there\’d ever be any followup on this case.
Now if we could just take ALL the Hummer drivers out there off the streets…
Jammers,
Don\’t be so intolerant of people different from yourself.
seriously! like that red hummer downtown the other day that was towed because it was blocking the street car with it\’s huge ass.
so, is it a requirement to be inbred in order to purchase these cars?
go forth and beat thy hummers into plow bikes….bike shares…..um…..something useful
I was pleasently surprised to see that this has been followed up on.
Thank you for the update!
Thank you, PPB, for a job well done!
You\’re sure a judgmental lot, aren\’t you? Hypocrites. I\’m not excusing anyone\’s behavior, if this dude threatened, or hurt, some one, then I hope there is justice. But, even in jest, it\’s simply not okay to stereotype anyone for any reason. I, as a cyclist, absolutely do not fit the usual stereotypes of a cyclist. However, I do take a lot of garbage directed at those stereotypes.
Many of you have voiced your outrage at the name of my blog. You don\’t like getting lumped in with elements in the cycling community you don\’t like. Why then, turn around and do it to other people? Just doesn\’t make any sense. Well, unless you are a hypocrite. Nanner.
Make sure your own house is clean…! Sigh.
Vance,
you are speaking logically and objectively.
Which is why these people will never understand you.
Are they not identifying him publically yet?
Bjorn
Thanks for the follow-up Jonathan, I\’m curious to see what happens next.
Vance, quit stereotyping hypocrites. Let me guess, this guy is short, bald, and dresses in dockers to go with his big shiny watch. He had a bad day a couple weeks ago because he didn\’t make quota for the third straight week, so he was alittle pissed when he realized he had to put his Hummer payment on one of his credit cards…so there!
GO VANCE! We cant all get along until we ALL drop the predjudices and stereotypes.
@Vance
\”But, even in jest, it\’s simply not okay to stereotype anyone for any reason.\”
I disagree entirely.
All issues of the usefulness of social stereotyping aside, it tickles me that Bikeportland readers are given credit for tracking this guy down. I love to think of us as a cohesive and powerful enough group of folks that we can get dudes like this off the street.
stereotypes to some people are just traits and habits that have been proved time and again in one person\’s experience to be true.
I see very few stereotypes in the comments here, and the ones I do see seem in jest.
No, mostly just a lot of relief and satisfaction that someone who would threaten to run over and hit another with a baseball bat might just get his due.
Vance? Steroetypes?
From your blog: \”So when you wear your individual blend of retro-repro-retro, ride your little fixie, get your asian tattoos, and join your little groups…\”
And there\’s more…
Pot, meet kettle.
Except for Vance\’s…but he may be in the middle of cleaning his own house- so he\’s forgiven!
Big SUV\’s aren\’t just a matter of style. All those folks driving light trucks who ought to be driving cars, mean extra dead Americans. How many? Take a look at this study for some (fairly) hard numbers on just the impact (sigh) on pedestrians:
http://tinyurl.com/yw6vk3
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16081753?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus
Just in 2002, if those light trucks had
all been sedans (some of them presumably really needed to be LT\’s),
somewhere between 515 and 676 (95% confidence) people wouldn\’t have died
in the US. So no, there\’s lots of folks who can\’t just \”get along\” with SUV\’s …
Hope he is brought to justice regardless of his choice in vehicle.
this guys choice of vehicle had nothign to do with the fact he got out of the car with a baseball bat…sorry folks.
he could have easily stepped out of a \’94 Honda, \’83 pickup, or (gasp) electric hybrid…uncontrollable anger is uncontrollable anger..its hardly defined by your choice of automobile.
I\’ve seen plenty of a-holes in all types of vehicles to think otherwise..
Vance is more judgmental than even I. (yes, I am not afraid to dig at even myself)
This is apparent in most everything he writes.
On another note:
Hummer + Vancouver Driver = Screams of living in my neighborhood.
I saw two Hummers out here that fit the description just in one short outing this afternoon. I appear to live in Hummerville.
Vance would like to continue the myth that there\’s a conflict between SUV drivers and all cyclists…
heck, ever big George Hincapie drives an SUV…so much for little things like facts..
http://www.caraudiomag.com/features/cae_0711_infinity_qx56_george_hincapie_wicked_cas/photo_01.html
Congratulations to the victim for successfully photo id\’ing this nut case. I\’d love to see Portland sock it to this malignant driver for the whole $4000 bucks. That\’s probably three or four hummer payments. A year out of his usual idiotic routine would be well assigned too, but incarceration in a nice jail or prison is too good for him.
Please do not respond to the troll, or any of his sock puppet aliases. Stay on topic, and he\’ll get tired and go back to his own super-popular blog. Where he can write his own comments.
My bike safety blog has left this story alone, for the simple reason that this was not an incident between a bike and motor vehicle, it was an assault that was escalated and continued by the motor vehicle operator even after the cyclist tried to leave the scene. I\’m glad the assailant has been caught, has he been charged yet?
But I\’ll say this:
Hummers are grossly inefficient, oversized, under-capable vehicles that have one purpose – to satisfy the egos of selfish, narcissistic people who are oblivious of their footprint in this world. It\’s not surprising that people of a certain personality often drive them. Is it stereotyping when it\’s true?
Hope the perp will be charged with something that will affect his driver\’s license, if he in fact threatened anyone from the safety of his cage. Assault could be pled down to minimum time (if any) and a fine, but no revocation or suspension of license. In most places, reckless driving–while less sexy than assault–means mandatory suspension and fine.
peejay,
You were saying . . .
http://www.alternet.org/story/14839/
…maybe a little good cop bad cop, minus the good cop, and give the bad cop a baseball bat. Then maybe he would feel like he made the victim feel.
Lock \’em up.
So, trying to run someone over with a car isn\’t assault with a deadly weapon!? I had a friend that was involved in a \”scuffle\” in a bar and happened to have a beer bottle in his hand, with beer in it, and he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. I don\’t know of too many people killed by a bottle, but I do know of several killed by in and out of cars. WTF???
If one is driving a Hummer, they at least egocentric and oblivious to anything but his own fucked up desire to drive an expensive, obese, gas guzzling piece of shit. This is not a stereotype, but rather a rational logical conclusion. There is no other explanation for anyone driving one of these things in a city on paved roads when gas is over $3.00 a gallon.
TonyT, that article is so dated! If anything, SUV\’s bring out the \”asshole\” in some people\’s personality, even more than they did six years ago, in 2002, the year that article was posted.
I agree with the writer\’s point that \”..image…\” is one of the over-riding motivations for certain mentally imbalanced people getting one of those big pieces of junk. More specifically, intimidation potential targeted towards relatively vulnerable road users is one of the key motivating factors for getting obnoxious SUV\’s like the Hummer, Tahoe, Expedition, etc.
Just imagine how much differently the nutcase baseball bat wielding Hummer driver might have behaved if he was obliged to drive around in a dinky little Chevy Sprint, or an old Yugo.
Just how prevalent the psychological intimidation factor appeal of big rolling hunks of junk in our culture has become, is driven home to me when I see the Beaverton Happy Days(may have the name slightly wrong…you get the idea, right?) Parade in August. The Beav Police can\’t resist proudly riding the parade in their black mariah in full stormtrooper gear. This is supposed to consistent with the upbeat tone of a family oriented summer community parade?
Notable excerpts from the article, \”Bumper Mentality\” By Stephanie Mencimer, Washington Monthly. Posted December 20, 2002 on AlterNet.org.
\”I have a hunch that government officials\’ justification for buying SUVs is mostly a ruse for their real motivation, which is the same as any other SUV owner\’s: image. Officials can safely load up their fleets with leather-seated SUVs, whereas using taxpayer dollars to buy themselves, say, a fleet of BMW coupes would get them crucified (even though Detroit considers SUVs luxury vehicles and designs them accordingly). Police departments may claim that they need an SUV to accommodate SWAT teams or canine units, but there is no reason that Sparky the drug dog wouldn\’t be just as comfortable in the back of a nice safe Chevy Astrovan.\”
\”Ironically, SUVs are particularly dangerous for children, whose safety is often the rationale for buying them in the first place. Because these beasts are so big and hard to see around (and often equipped with dark-tinted glass that\’s illegal in cars), SUV drivers have a troubling tendency to run over their own kids. Just recently, in October, a wealthy Long Island doctor made headlines after he ran over and killed his 2-year-old in the driveway with his BMW X5. He told police he thought he\’d hit the curb.\”
\”Have you ever wondered why sport utility vehicle drivers seem like such assholes? Surely it\’s no coincidence that Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, tours Washington in one of the biggest SUVs on the market, the Cadillac Escalade, or that Jesse Ventura loves the Lincoln Navigator.
Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher\’s new book, \”High and Mighty,\” the connection between the two isn\’t a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation\’s most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
According to market research conducted by the country\’s leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be \”insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others.\”
He says, too, that SUV drivers generally don\’t care about anyone else\’s kids but their own, are very concerned with how other people see them rather than with what\’s practical, and they tend to want to control or have control over the people around them. David Bostwick, Chrysler\’s market research director, tells Bradsher, \”If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you\’re still single.\”.\”
\”Ask a typical SUV driver why he drives such a formidable vehicle, and he\’ll invariably insist that it\’s for safety reasons — the kids, you know — not because he\’s too vain to get behind the wheel of a sissy Ford Windstar. Automakers themselves know otherwise — their own market research tells them so.\”
wsbob,
That\’s the good thing about the truth.
It ages very well.
well said tonyt and wsbob
wsbob, I hate to break it to ya here fella, but women comprise the majority of SUV owners, not men. This link is to a 5 year old article, and states that at the time, women were 45% of the whole truck market; and expected to make gains over the following years.
http://4wheeldrive.about.com/cs/forwomenonly/a/aa092202b_2.htm?iam=metaresults&terms=why+women+are+buying+suv%22s
Whether it\’s making fun of faggy little poser emo-kids on brakeless junk, or picking on an under-endowed bald guy in a Hummer, you are still being an ass. At least that is the roe I\’ve been given to hoe, why should you get off the bigot hook?
woops, ROW. I don\’t even know, can we use an tag, J?
Wow Vance. You are just a thoroughly and completely unpleasant person.
Give it up, tonyt – Vance doesn\’t care what any of our personal opinions of him are, and he\’s not going to change so that we think better of him.
In that respect, he has mine.
As for his arguments, opinions, etc – well, let\’s just say we disagree heavily.
The SUV-driver stereotype exists because that behavior is so prevalent. The fact that maybe half or more of the drivers are women is largely irrelevant – in my experience they are just as unobservant and ignorant of their surroundings as the men and just as secure in their perceived invulnerability. The only difference I have seen is that the men tend to be more aggressive. The aggressive drivers are nowhere near as dangerous or as numerous as the inattentive ones, and much more predictable.
Most of the SUV drivers are like every average motorist, but as always the bad bananas really ruin the bunch.
I own a SUV, Yeah its a V6. OOOh yeah. It gets 34 on the freeway. Yet unfortunatly it sits in my driveway 5 days a week. I take it out to roll with my with my 2 year old, to the north end of forest park on saturdays to walk our 2 huskys. ( I have them pull me on my skateboard most week days). I take this rig off road in the summer,and winter, to go camping, Mt bike riding, (the wee one likes sleding now, a little luxury)
Oh yeah. I ride every,every,every day..
Do I fit wsbobs\’ profile?
?????????
Now that we have a clear picture of the typical SUV owner/driver…Place a cell phone in their collective left hand and a grande latte in their right. That is my battlefield. (Ooooh…Pat Benatar reference on Valentine\’s? I rock!)
Yea I\’m with Beefa…I have a V6 SUV also. Works well when I go snowboarding/mountain biking…and it gets infinity miles per gallon when I am bike commuting 🙂 The dog likes having the whole back area when I have to take him places too.
Even though I don\’t totally agree fully with the SUV stereotyping, I must admit just about every hummer driver I have ever met has been a bit of a douche.
Stereotyping is a dangerous activity to engage in my two-wheeled friends. Your selective perceptions will soon search for evidence to support your biases. Its a pretty inaccurate and unfair way to deal with other people. If it isn\’t caused by ignorance, then its often the result of immaturity or lack of life experiences.
People have SUV\’s and trucks for all sorts of reasons, for example. Someday you might have one too. I did a job recently in central Oregon and I needed to rent a large pickup truck for several months. I actually used it to haul tons of materials to and from the jobsite. When I drove by did you know who I was and what I was doing or did you simply judge and hate? Or to put it another way, did you lose control of your emotions?
Your job is not to figure out whether or not people are justified in using their SUV\’s or pickup trucks or whether they are simply egotistical maniacs. You unfortunately perhaps, will never be able to acquire all the information you need to know to make that discrimination. Moreover it\’s not your \’job\’ to go about judging people based on your beliefs (contrary to our tabloid addictions). I can guaranttee you\’re going to make a lot of errors doing that and waste a significant amount of time.
\”But if you want money for people with minds that hate…;\” OK, not Pat Benatar, but at least its a little more music.
Dear overworked moderator-
When personal insults or comments containing vile language are posted, they are deleted. I hope that comment #41 comes into consideration for deletion for dropping the \”F\” word, which many continue to feel is homophobic, insulting, and divisive. Negatively associating homosexuality with weakness is just as bigoted and offensive as using the \”N\” word, and it will neither strengthen or weaken the poster\’s argument to drop that language.
Thanks.
1st – Regardless of what he was driving, I\’m glad they seem to be getting to the bottom of this assault.
2nd, while I don\’t own an SUV, I\’ve been on several climbs or backpacking trips where I was sure glad I knew someone who did, so I appreciate their real uses. But a Hummer averages under 10 mpg and I just find that kind of conspicuous consumption, like heating a 4000 sq/ft McMansion, kind of disturbing. Call it stereotyping if you will, but in that way, driving a Hummer and wielding a baseball bat both speak to a selfisness and diregard to the well-being of others that\’s hard for me to understand.