JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville police need the public’s help in locating two women who were involved in an apparent road rage attack that sent a man to the hospital with serious injuries to his skull and shoulder.
Witnesses say a woman holding a hammer used the tool as a weapon when she attacked the victim.
“I saw him falling back. The one person was just on him. And you could see her swinging. It looked like she was swinging something or hitting him,” said Todd Addicott, who witnessed the attack.
That incident happened Tuesday near the intersection of Belote Place and Mitchell Avenue in San Marco.
The victim is now out of the hospital, but still recovering from his injuries.
The victim, who did not want to be identified, says he and his girlfriend were walking their dog along Belote Place which has no sidewalks.
He says a speeding car swerved around a parked car and almost hit them. He says he yelled at the driver to slow down.
Then he says the car went into reverse and came at them forcing them to jump into the grass. Then he says a woman got out of the car and attacked him with a hammer.
The victim’s girlfriend recorded a cell phone video at the end of the incident in which the driver is seen holding a hammer in her hand.
“When I got close enough, I saw a lot of blood,” Addicott said.
Addicott is one of several neighbors who heard the commotion and ran out of his house to help.
“I really wanted to go back and get a weapon because I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
The victim told News4Jax off camera that he yelled at the driver after she nearly ran him and his girlfriend over while they were walking their dog. He says she got out of the car and before he knew it, he was on the ground bleeding.
“He must have been caught off guard so much that he didn’t know what was happening,” Addicott said.
The attack happened pretty fast and the woman got back in the car and sped off.
Neighbors described her as a woman approximately 6-feet tall, weighing about 250 pounds with braided hair.
She was driving a light-colored Toyota Avalon.
The victim tells News4Jax that when he spoke with police, they told him the Pennsylvania license plate on the car came back as a fake plate.
The attack is putting a spotlight on a much bigger problem for those living along Belote Place.
Neighbors said they are not surprised an argument over speeding led to a brutal attack because they say people who don’t live in the neighborhood speed through every day to avoid traffic congestion at the intersection of Hendricks Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard.
Neighbors say there are times when they use colorful language when yelling at people to slow down.
Eloise Williams is one of many neighbors in the San Marco community who says she came close to being run over by a speeding driver while walking her dog along Belote Place.
“I was walking one day and someone came and just speeded right by me and almost hit me and my dog,” she said.