A Waterbury woman had a frightening encounter on her way to work on Tuesday morning.
Alison McIntire said she was driving on Interstate 84 in the Southbury area just before 9 a.m. when a man stopped short, got out of his car and started kicking her station wagon.
“I was driving on the highway and I’d seen him coming up behind me in the fast lane, so I moved over to not be in his way because he clearly wanted to go faster than me, he slowed down, kept trying to come into my lane and run me off the road, and finally he got in front of me, slammed on his brakes, put his car in park, there was no room for me to go around him,” McIntire said.
“He just got out of the car, he didn’t say anything, started kicking the car. There was a tractor-trailer behind me, and the gentleman in the tractor-trailer got out and started screaming, and that was when he got back in his car and took off," she continued.
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Her vehicle has several large dents in the passenger side door and hood along with the man’s footprints. Her side mirror is also hanging off.
“Honestly, I was like 'What? What is actually wrong with this guy?' Why would you stop in the middle of the highway and get out of your car, you know?”
She reported the incident to Connecticut State Police who she said told her she was the second victim of that man’s road rage this morning.
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“I’m happy that I stayed in the car and I didn’t get out of the car to try and do anything because he clearly was violent. You could tell he wasn’t in the right mental state when he got out of the car,” McIntire said. “I’d just dropped my kids off at school before it happened, so, I’m just happy that they weren’t in the car.”
CT State Police focused their investigation at the Southington Rest Area
— Amanda Pitts (@AmandaPittsTV) February 11, 2025
Next door, K9s tracked the suspect’s scent to the fence line at Sign Pro. The owner tells me troopers combed through hours of his surveillance.
“There was a brandished gun and also a machete,” he was told. pic.twitter.com/KZfgYsk5eI
State police spent the day searching for the suspect, shutting down the I-84 East rest area in Southington, but didn’t share much about the investigation.
On Wednesday morning, they said there is still an active and ongoing investigation.
Next door to the rest area, police converged on Sign Pros, where owner Peter Rappoccio said a K9 tracked the suspect’s scent.
“We looked outside, and the SWAT team came, K9 was here,” he said. “They got a scent off the fence line in our front property, so we ran out, told them we have video footage.”
Rappoccio said troopers spent hours combing through his surveillance video.
“I was told by one of the officers there was a brandished gun and also a machete, and he had abandoned a vehicle over at the rest area, then went on foot,” Rappoccio said. “I think they were at Cheshire originally, and he broke out of some kind of a barricade there between two officers and struck two vehicles.”
He and other business owners in the area went into lockdown. Local elementary and middle schools did, too.
“We brought everybody in, locked the doors just to be safe, we don’t want anything happening. This is very accessible, someone could be hiding out behind the building,” Hope Roecker of Lather and Laughs Dog Groomer and Daycare said. “I just feel sad. I’ll be happy when I hear the person is caught, and hopefully getting help.”
Police said there was no active threat to the community and said more information is to come.
