Santa Clara Woman Arrested After I-80 Road Rage Rampage Caught On Cellphone Video
SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) -- A Santa Clara woman made her first court appearance Tuesday after a road rage incident was captured in a dramatic cellphone video that showed a vehicle forcing a car off a mountain highway.
Passenger Delanie Strykul and her friend Vanessa frantically called the California Highway Patrol on Saturday afternoon to report that they were being repeatedly cut off by the driver of a silver Ford Explorer Sport Trac pickup truck on Interstate 80, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento.
"She just hit our car, she just hit our car. She's pushing us off of the road. Yes, she's pushing us off the road. She's coming for us," passenger Delanie Strykul tells a CHP dispatcher on the video, her voice shaking. "Please help us."
Strykul says they were targeted by the woman in the silver Ford after being cut off twice, and then she slowed down to drive along side their car.
"When she did that, I threw up my hands and flipped her off," which Strykul says she now regrets.
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"She did the whole zig zag in three lanes with her flashers on, kind of like what a police officer would do if they were trying to slow down traffic," Strykul said.
The video shows the Explorer forcing their Mazda onto the shoulder as the Mazda's driver screams.
"I could not believe this was real. I was sitting there going, `This has to be a joke,"' Strykul told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Strykul shot the video while also calling the Highway Patrol. They eventually were directed to an interstate exit where a highway patrolman was waiting to make the arrest.
The suspect, Deirdre Orozco, 50, of Santa Clara, was charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of false imprisonment, unlawful use of a badge, reckless driving and resisting arrest.
Orozco's old landlord in Santa Clara says she lived in this home with a man and her two kids, before he had to evict her.
"She had temper, she had a temper. And I thought listen, I do my job, my job is to collect my rent. And you don't pay the rent, you don't have a right to live in my place," landlord Joe Oliveira told KPIX 5.
Orozco is a bail bonds agent in San Jose, according to records. Police say she had no authority to pull over anyone.
She was held in lieu of $250,000 bail and was due back in court Friday after pleading not guilty to multiple charges from two incidents days apart. A public defender was to be appointed to represent her.
Roseville police said Orozco also had been arrested three days earlier but was freed while prosecutors weighed charges from that incident. Police say a woman identified as Orozco first hit a driver at a Roseville intersection, then continued on to a relative's house. There she threw large rocks through a window while threatening the residents, said police spokeswoman Dee Dee Gunther.
Orozco is charged in that incident with assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats, vandalism, reckless driving, and hit-and-run.
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