It's not every day you see someone road rage against a police officer on a busy highway and get away with it. But when you drive along the I-75 in South Florida, you expect to see some weird things.
Dash cam video of the incident begins with the driver of a Nissan sedan aggressively swerving across several busy lanes of traffic to intentionally cut off a Miramar police officer who was driving in the far right lane. The Nissan then slams on its brakes, forcing the cruiser to slow down.
“It got in front of the police car, slammed on the brakes, forced the police car from the very right-hand lane. They were probably about 100 yards in front of me when this happened,” Austin Conley, the owner of the dash cam told Fox 13. “I almost got hit by the police car."
The Miramar police officer then attempts to change lanes to get away from the Nissan, but the vehicle matches the move, staying in front of it. The officer never turns on her lights and sirens at any point during the video.
“That was the weird thing about it,” he continued. “It didn’t look like there was any attempt by the person in the police car to even stop the driver.”
Conley says he eventually saw the two vehicles pulled over on the side of the road, but no police lights were seen flashing. Later in the dash cam video, the cruiser can be seen speeding off.
Police say the road rage incident began as a family dispute between the officer who was driving the cruiser and the father of her children, Roberto Zaldivar, the man in the Nissan.
“There was an incident that occurred at the residence of the police officer and later on translated onto the highway,” an FHP officer told WSVN-TV in Miami. “There’s a good thing that there’s video - dash-cams - not only in police cruisers, but also on people that are driving in the highways because that is actually a tool for law enforcement to investigate.”
Zaldivar was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and criminal mischief.
The Miramar Police released a statement on the incident.
“Police officers are not immune to being victims of domestic abuse. The Miramar Police Department has offered victim services to this employee and will continue to support all victims of crime.”