Blind rage caused a Greensboro man to put three lives at risk while driving down a Hickory street.
Raymond Morris Patterson, 32, was arrested after he admitted to crashing his girlfriend’s car – on purpose – while she was driving. His 7-year-old son was in the back seat at the time. He was strapped into a child safety seat.
Police were dispatched to the scene at about 2:45 p.m. Saturday where the silver 2004 Cadillac Seville had slammed into a telephone pole on the 1600 block of 6th St., NW.
When officer Bradly Lowman of the Hickory Police Department arrived at the scene, he asked Patterson what happened.
Patterson said a dog had jumped out in front of the car and his girlfriend hit the telephone pole when she swerved to miss it.
The story didn’t ring true to Lowman.
He asked Patterson’s girlfriend what happened.
She said they were headed to the gym when Patterson asked her to pick up his gym shoes. When she refused, they argued and Patterson said he was going to wreck her car and total it.
Patterson reached across her and snatched the steering wheel. He shoved it to the left, forcing the Cadillac into a 180-degree turn that stopped when the car hit a telephone pole in the dead center of the car’s front bumper.
The officer asked Patterson if the story was true, and he admitted it was. Patterson called his decision to wreck the car with his girlfriend and son inside a “stupid mistake,” Lowman said.
Lowman estimates that the Cadillac was going about 15 mph when it hit the pole. No one was injured in the crash, but the car was damaged and had to be towed away from the scene.
“I’ve never dealt with a situation where somebody in a car tried to wreck it on purpose when they weren’t even driving,” Lowman said.
Patterson was charged with reckless driving to endanger and misdemeanor child abuse/endangerment. He is being held in the Catawba County jail under a $1,200 secured bond.
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