Wild dashboard camera video shows man shooting pistol out window in Miami ‘road rage’ incident
Gunman says he thought a fellow driver fired first
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A shocking dash camera from Florida shows a case of road rage gone extremely wrong.
In the clip, first obtained by talk show host Andy Slater, 30-year-old Eric Popper can allegedly be seen getting increasingly agitated with a fellow driver before firing through his window with a pistol.
The June video begins with Mr Popper, listening to music and looking into his rearview mirror, before saying, “Of, f*** off,” and hitting his breaks.
He continues to observe a driver behind him, before opening a locked container in his center console and drawing a pistol, which police said he fired 11 times at the car that was tailgating him as it drove past.
Mr Popper, a civilian fire inspector from Deerfield Beach, turned himself in to the Florida Highway Patrol on 21 July, and faces felony charges including aggressive assault with a firearm. He was bonded out of jail.
The man’s attorney, Robert Gershman, said he believed he was being shot at, though it turned out the other driver had in fact thrown a water bottle.
“You hear a bang on Mr. Popper’s car, akin to a gunshot, which precipitated the whole incident, so in this matter, the audio and video evidence we believe exonerates him,” Mr Gershman told NBC Miami.
“I was just shot at. My car was hit,” Mr Popper is heard saying on another dashboard camera video. “I returned fire back at the individual.”
Both the shooter and the victim in the incident pulled over and called 911 after the exchange on I-95.
No one was injured in the 21 June incident. Mr Popper resigned from his position as an inspector after the shooting took place.