Man arrested after alleged road rage incident

HOUSTON – A father of four young girls says he is lucky to be alive after a road rage incident that started Saturday morning in north Houston.

The incident was reported at 9 a.m. on Veterans Memorial Drive and Bammel North Houston.

Stephen Titus, a landman in the oil industry, said after traveling down Bammel North Houston he suddenly found himself being tailgated and chased by a man named Zachary Carpenter. He said the incident lasted about 7 minutes and ended near the intersection of Bammel North Houston and Champion Forest Drive.

Titus said the other driver was mad at him for supposedly cutting him off.

 After driving about a mile or so, Titus said he stopped at a Chevron gas station when Carpenter started running toward his car swinging a six foot long cargo strap with a five pound ratchet head on the end of it.

“He was running at me and swinging it as hard as he could -- cause he was mad and was trying to hurt me … and he’s swinging this thing and he lets it go and it damages the back end of my minivan,” Titus said.

Titus said Carpenter ran towards him again, swinging the strap like a windmill and managed to strike the end of the strap right through his open driver’s side window. He said the strap ripped the leather seat directly next to where his head was.

“Oh I just ducked to the side at the last minute and I heard a loud thump. That thing just missed my neck, my jaw, my face. Had I not dove out of the way, that thing could have killed me,” Titus said.

Carpenter was arrested and is being held without bond.

He is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Safe back home with his family again, Titus said this whole road rage thing was over nothing.

His wife Amelia has advice for the man who attacked her husband: “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to rage out like that and use that kind of violence. That man could have taken a good husband and father away from his family over nothing.”


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Emmy-winning investigative reporter, insanely competitive tennis player, skier, weightlifter, crazy rock & roll drummer (John Bonham is my hero). Husband to Veronica and loving cat father to Bella and Meemo.