With our packed South Florida roads, we've all heard about road rage but no one ever thinks it's going to happen to them.
So when one South Florida man, who asked to be identified as only Carlos, pulled out of his driveway last year in Southwest Miami-Dade, he thought it was just another day. He even had on his Google Glass eyewear recording the pleasant afternoon. That was right until he accidentally cut off a White Mercedes SUV twice on Kendall Drive.
All seen through the footage of the smart glasses, Carlos waits at the next light and the SUV pulls up alongside him. Both drivers roll down their windows.
Carlos apologizes, but the next thing he knew, the other a driver, who police later identified as 23-year-old Lazaro Cespedes, pulls out a gun and says he will kill him.
"I'll kill you right in the head," Cespedes is heard saying.
"You gonna pull a gun on me?" Carlos asks.
In the footage, Cespedes also dares Carlos to get out of his vehicle. Carlos tells Cespedes he was being recorded, but the profanities kept coming.
When the light changes, Cespedes follows Carlos for a few blocks and then races off and speeds away on the Florida Turnpike. Carlos calls 911 and waits for police at a gas station and can be heard recovering from the roller coaster ride he was on one afternoon last year.
"The video is so telling," retired Broward Sheriff's Office Supervisor Jack Dale said after reviewing the footage. "You see in that moment how quickly that can occur. It's only seconds from the time he rolls down the window till the exchange or the dialogue occurs and then he pulls out the firearm. At that moment, there's only a couple pounds of trigger pull and he could potentially shoot the other individual. It's a very dangerous situation. "
Police say that road rage incident wasn't the only time that Cespedes pulled his gun that day. Images of a broken windshield from a road rage scene later that night show where police Cespedes fired his gun. The driver was not hit.
Months later, the Florida Highway Patrol caught up with Cespedes when a license plate image from the video was good enough to trace the license tag to a rental car company. The management there tracked down who rented the vehicle.
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Cespedes was arrested and charged a few months later with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and battery for the two incidents that day. He's entered not guilty pleas to all the charges.
Dale says the volume in cars on the road heightens tensions and the amount of road rage.
"The roadways are the same roadways we had for 20-30 years and now we're seeing a lot more people travel on them," Dale said. "So, with all these cars on the roadway and people wanting to get somewhere in a hurry we tend to have more of these incidents."
We reached out to Lazaro Cespedes and his attorney, and who said they plan to vigorously fight the charges.
Cespedes is not being held in jail while facing these allegations and still has his license and ability to drive.
If you end up in a road rage incident, police say you should keep your windows rolled up and don't argue. If someone shows a weapon, don't make any sudden moves and drive off in another direction as soon as you can.
