HARRIS COUNTY – A local man is facing aggravated assault charges after investigators with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said he used his SUV as a weapon. The victim in that attack was his wife and a man who was a passenger in her car at the time, according to authorities.
The heart-stopping moments that preceded the crash were captured by a neighbor’s home surveillance camera.
It showed the woman’s car being chased by a Cadillac SUV down a quiet, residential street seconds before ramming into the back of it, which caused the female driver to strike a large flatbed trailer.
“It sounded like an explosion. Just like a humongous explosion,” neighbor Vicki Chittenden said.
It happened at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, one of the busiest times in the neighborhood, according to residents.
“We have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old,” Chittenden said. “They had just been out on the trampoline.”
Investigators said witnesses told them the SUV’s driver was the husband of the 35-year-old woman in the car that was rear-ended.
“She got real afraid,” Chittenden said. “She said, ‘He’s trying to kill me. He’s trying to kill me.’”
Chittenden said the woman and her passenger were trapped before being rescued by first responders.
“She couldn’t breathe,” she said. “The passenger couldn’t even talk. He was gurgling.”
The debris field from the wreck was so large, it covered about half a block.
“Car parts scattered everywhere in these people’s yards. We knew we were not going to get them out with the amount of damage,” another neighbor, Robert David, said.
David added he kept his eye on the SUV’s driver while he sat on a curb until deputies arrived.
“I would like to see him pay for his actions here. He was totally out of control. [He] didn’t care about anything,” David said.