Crime & Safety
Road Rage Driver Found Guilty in Attack on Teen in Los Alamitos
Robert Allen Barnhart, 54, faces five years in prison for chasing and repeatedly ramming a driver, then pulling him out of the car and pummeling him.
A 54-year-old Bellflower man was convicted today of assault in a road rage incident in Los Alamitos nearly two years ago.
Robert Allen Barnhart was found guilty of two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon and a misdemeanor count of battery. Jurors deliberated four hours and ultimately rejected his defense that he was attempting to stop the 18-year-old driver to make a citizen's arrest following a fender bender.
Barnhart is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 27. He faces up to five years and two months in prison. The case is not his first run-in with the law. Barnhart was previously convicted in a spousal abuse case and a separate road rage case in which he threw coffee at another driver.
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In the latest incident, he was driving his Dodge Ram pickup truck on Bloomfield Avenue in Los Alamitos when he was rear-ended by an 18-year-old man at a red light at about 10:50 a.m., Nov. 5, 2011, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Barnhart got out of his vehicle and angrily confronted the man with threats, prompting the victim to get back in his vehicle and drive away, according to prosecutors.
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Barnhart got back in his truck and chased after the man, according to prosecutors. He raced ahead and then swerved into the vehicle, striking the front of it with the rear of his truck, according to prosecutors.
The collision caused the vehicle to spin out into opposing lanes of traffic. The man tried to get away on the wrong side of the road, but Barnhart continued the chase, racing ahead, swerving in front of the victim's vehicle and slamming on the brakes, according to prosecutors.
The vehicle slammed into the passenger side of Barnhart's truck, and the man was blocked from driving away again, according to prosecutors.
Barnhart got out of the pickup, opened the driver's side door of the vehicle and dragged out the victim. Barnhart then pushed the man to the ground and punched him until witnesses intervened and called police, according to prosecutors.
- City News Service
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