VALLEJO, CA- A California woman finds herself in legal trouble after she used a pepper spray-like substance on a man during a road rage incident, the Vallejo Police Department reported.
Law & Crime reported that Tiffany Bagby, 41, was arrested on charges including false imprisonment, assault likely to cause great bodily injury, unlawful use of tear gas, obstructing a peace officer, battery with serious bodily injury, evading police by driving the wrong way, and carrying a concealed dagger, the department reported.
Last week, the victim, an Army veteran, said Bagby “began making obscene gestures at him,” according to a press release from the Vallejo PD.
“She then aggressively sped in front of his vehicle and blocked him from leaving,” police said.
What led to the road rage? Bagby told the victim, identified as Joe Vallely, that he was driving too slowly, KTVU reported.
dir="ltr">Vallely used his cellphone to document the incident.
“You scared?” Bagby asked Vallely. “You should be scared b*tch.”
Bagby then walked up to Vallely as he sat in his work truck, raised her hand, and sprayed an orange liquid into Vallely’s open side window. It is believed the “liquid” was, in fact, pepper spray. Vallely then screamed out in pain, the release said.
“Immiediately [I] felt the pepper spray,” Vallely told KTVU last week. “She was like two feet away. She got me directly in the eyeballs; it felt like someone was sandblasting my eyeballs with glass,” he said.
Vallely further told the outlet that the city had recently installed “speed tables,” a traffic calming device used by some municipalities to slow traffic. That installation came after multiple complaints about speeding on that road, Vallely said.
“I noticed someone was tailgating me and flipping me off,” Vallely said, emphasizing that due to the speed tables, you have to slow down on that stretch of road. “And I’m driving the bucket truck slow because it’s big and old and heavy.”
Bagby was eventually able to drive around Vallely near an intersection where the road widens from one lane to two, Vallely said.
“She slammed on her brakes, she forced me to slam on my brakes,” Vallely told KTVU. “And there’s cars behind me that almost hit me. I almost hit the lady.”
Vallely said he backed up when he saw the crazed woman approaching him.
“In the video, I said nothing. I wanted no confrontation,” he said. “I wanted nothing to do with any interaction. I was just trying to avoid the situation at all costs.”
After the incident, he drove off to find a place where he could wash the substance off his face and out of his eyes.
Police said that they were eventually able to identify the suspect, however she refused to cooperate with officers and wouldn’t discuss the incident.
On May 14, officers spotted Bagby driving about three miles north of where the road rage incident took place, the department said.
“They conducted a traffic stop, but when officers approached her vehicle, she refused their commands to exit and then drove away, leading to a high-speed pursuit,” the Vallejo PD said, according to Law & Crime. The pursuit went on for about four miles, however Bagby finally pulled over and was arrested.
“During the arrest, officers discovered a large concealed knife hidden between the driver’s seat and the center console of the vehicle,” the press release read. “After her arrest, the suspect admitted to having pepper-sprayed the victim during the initial road rage incident.”
Bagby is currently being held in the Solano County Jail on a bond of $108,334, court records show.
KTVU obtained a video in which a woman identified as Bagby accepted responsibility for the incident.
dir="ltr">‘I just wasn’t in the mood for it,” she said. “Him being a man and me being a woman. I’ve been my own protector my entire life. I got out [of] the car. And he began to record me. And yes, I pepper-sprayed him.”
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