A road rage incident quickly escalated into a dangerous ordeal for a Black Texas woman who felt threatened after a man followed her to a gas station, pointed a gun at her, rear-ended her car and called her racial slurs.
Surveillance video captured 30-year-old Kevin Roth following a woman into a gas station convenience store in Harris County, Texas, while aiming a handgun at her.
Local station ABC 13 Houston spoke exclusively with the victim, who chose not to release her identity. She said she was in her car sitting at a red light. Roth was right behind her in his vehicle. When the light turned green, Roth honked at her. She honked back, and that’s when she saw him pull out his gun while he was driving. He rear-ended her too then began following her.
She told ABC 13 that’s when she “took off” and sped to a “gas station in a public area.”
“I had already seen that gun in the car. So I didn’t want to just pull over like a regular car accident,” the victim said.
She pulled into a Phillips 66 gas station, got out of her car and ran into the store. Surveillance video shows Roth closely following the woman and pointing the gun right at her back.
Even when she tried to leave the store, Roth followed her out and tried to take the keys out of her car. Then she says he got back in his car and hit her car again, presumably to keep her from leaving the station. The woman said Roth then started shouting racial slurs at her.
“I honestly didn’t think he would pull a gun out in public and chase me. He was like, ‘Get on the ground right now!’ He could have shot me. He was aiming a gun. I could tell he was kind of scared himself,” the victim said. “He was shaking his hand. That’s why I was scared. ‘I’m scared because you’re scared.’ He could have done anything to me just out of fear,” she said.
Deputies arrived at the station soon afterward, and confiscated the gun. They arrested Roth and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
“My heart was just racing. When the police got there, I was just like in tears,” the alleged victim said.
Roth was later released on a $25,000 bond. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said he hadn’t been charged with any prior offenses, other than minor traffic violations.
Similar road rage incidents happened in California and Michigan just a few weeks ago.
One man was arrested after reportedly trying to ram his car into the vehicle of a Black driver in Oakland. He also called the motorist the N-word multiple times. After trying to hit the driver’s car, he missed and crashed into a wall on the freeway.
Another white man was charged after he and a Black driver got into an argument while driving on a highway through a Detroit suburb. The conflict escalated to a full-on physical fight after the white driver called the Black motorist a number of racial slurs. He then pulled out a knife and stabbed the Black driver and slashed his tires. The victim wasn’t severely injured.
