Is Chevy Chase the victim or cause of road rage incident? ‘I didn’t know who he was’
He’s Chevy Chase, but that didn’t matter on Feb. 9.
The “Saturday Night Live” alum told police he was driving his 2015 Dodge Ram in New York when another car cut him off in traffic. Thinking that his car had been damaged, the actor says he followed the offending vehicle across the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge and flashed his lights until it stopped, according to The Journal News.
Chase, whose car suffered no damage, pulled up to the vehicle that allegedly cut him off and got out to talk to the driver, The Journal News reported. The two men began to argue, police say, and the other driver kicked Chase, 74, in the shoulder after cursing at him.
That man, 22-year-old Michael C. Landrio, was charged with second-degree harassment, NJ.com reported. Chase was not charged.
But Landrio told the New York Post’s Page Six that he moved from the right lane to the middle lane when he approached the bridge. Then he saw “an old guy yelling … something we couldn’t hear.”
“We just tried to get the heck away from him,” he told Page Six, alleging that Chase weaved through traffic to stay close. “He followed us the whole length of the bridge, driving crazy.”
Landrio then told Page Six that he pulled over and rolled down his window to apologize. But Chase was having none of it, he said.
“You know who the f— I am?” Landrio alleges that Chase screamed. “Then he started cursing at me for no reason and said, ‘I am going to ruin your lives!’ I said, ‘F— you!’
“Then he yanks open their car door and yells, ‘I’m going to punch you in the nose’ and he came after me and had his hands in my face,” he continued. “I said, ‘Get the f— away from me!’”
So Landrio said he kicked Chase in the shoulder, arguing that “I didn’t know who he was — I was just trying to defend myself” from an incoming punch.
A representative for Chase told TMZ that his client didn’t try to punch Landrio, and couldn’t have because the actor injured his shoulder two days prior when he slipped on ice.
Chase also said the kick was so strong that it knocked him to the ground.
Police can’t confirm whether Chase tried to punch Landrio, USA Today reported.
Landrio told Page Six that a responding police officer told him he had been arguing with a famous person — but the 22-year-old said he still couldn’t recognize the comedian after Googling him.
Landrio is scheduled to appear in court on March 5.
This story was originally published February 23, 2018 at 8:30 AM with the headline "Is Chevy Chase the victim or cause of road rage incident? ‘I didn’t know who he was’."