INDIANAPOLIS — A Metro Police officer is under investigation after an alleged road rage assault.
The home security video looks like a street brawl, but witnesses say it was something more troubling.
“I never saw a badge or he never acknowledged he was a police officer,” said victim Tom Trickle.
Trickle, who recently had surgery for brain cancer, just finished a year of chemotherapy.
As he crossed busy Banta Road Thursday morning to talk to his neighbor Robert Turner, Trickle said “a car came blowing past behind me and he was just laying on the horn. Not giving me any kind of break whatsoever.”
He yelled at the car to slow down. “I gave him the bird,” Trickle said.
He was frustrated. He’s been after police and the city to do something about speeding on Banta Road east of Bluff Road for a long time. The man in the unmarked gray car that honked at Trickle drove away, but came back about two minutes later.
Trickle said the unmarked gray car “stopped in the middle of the road.” He said the driver got out and “stood behind his door and was cussing at me.”
“Of course I became mad and was cussing back at him,” Trickle said.
Turner’s security camera caught it. Turner said he spotted flashing lights on the back of the unmarked car and then noticed a small embroidered badge on the driver’s polo shirt.
Turner said the man in the gray car “made the comment to Tom, ‘Who in the F do you think you are flipping me off?’ Then Tom said, ‘Who in the F do you think you are speeding down our road?'”
“The officer came around from behind the door and then it just escalated very quick,” Turner said.
“Then he said, ‘Get out of my face. He took both hands and just…just blasted me,” Trickle said.
“The officer took one step back and just went ‘Boom!’ knocked (Trickle) back 8-10 feet. He hit his tailbone he went back and snapped and hit his head, glasses fell off,” Turner said.
He said the man never identified himself as a police officer.
“Tom was trying to get up, so he was shoving him back to the ground,” Turner said.
“If he would’ve said, ‘I’m a police officer, it might’ve went a little different, you know?” Trickle said.
Source: https://www.wthr.com/article/impd-investigating-report-officer-involved-road-rage-incident