Road-rage encounter includes attempted stabbing, gunshot, according to Skokie police

Skokie police arrested a man earlier this month for allegedly attacking another man with a knife in a suspected incident of road rage on Main Street.

A Skokie police officer responded to the 3500 block of Lee Street around 4 p.m. on July 2 for a report of shots fired, according to a Skokie police report The Record obtained via a public-records request.

On scene, an officer reportedly observed a man in the street with his hands raised. According to the police report, the man told the officer he had a firearm, which the officer secured, inside his garage.

The man reportedly told police he had been driving along Main Street when “he became involved in a road-rage incident” with a second man police later identified as a 60-year-old Skokie resident. 

The first man told police he again encountered the alleged road-rage driver at the intersection of Lee Street and St. Louise Avenue, the report says. The second man “intentionally steered his vehicle” alongside the first man’s car, so the driver’s side windows of both were side by side.

The second man reportedly “then produced a large knife and lunged toward (the man) through the open driver’s side window.”

The first man reportedly told police he feared for his life and “believed he was in imminent danger of being stabbed,” and in response, drew a firearm from a concealed holster he had near his waistband “and fired one round in (the second man’s) direction,” the report says. 

The first man told police the second man immediately drove away from the scene and he drove directly to his residence, which was located near the intersection. After arriving home, he put the holstered firearm inside his garage, called 911 and waited outside for police, the report says. 

Skokie police then received a call from the second driver, “who identified himself as the other party involved in the incident,” the police report says. He reportedly told police he was at Skokie Hospital.

A Skokie police officer then interviewed the second driver at the hospital, located his car in the hospital’s parking lot and a knife inside the car that matched the description of the knife reportedly used in the incident, according to the report.

Skokie police also reportedly interviewed a witness of the incident, located a doorbell camera that “may have captured the incident,” and obtained a recorded interview with the first man, the police report says. 

“Based on the totality of the circumstances, including the statements obtained duringsthe investigation, the physical evidence recovered at the scene, witness information, and the evidence documented by responding officers and detectives, it was determined that (the second man) was the primary aggressor in this incident,” a Skokie police officer wrote in their report. 

Skokie police arrested the second man, whom the county charged with one count of aggravated assault. He was later released on pretrial conditions, the police report says. 

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