WATCH: (Scroll Down For Video) A father has been stabbed several times outside his car as his five-year-old sat in the backseat during a road rage incident in Northern California and the man arrested is claiming he acted in self-defense.
San Jose police spokesman Sgt Enrique Garcia said the injured man, a 36-year-old San Jose resident, was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive.
Travis David Painter, also of San Jose, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
Painter, 21, told the San Jose Mercury News that he acted in self-defense after the father cut him off on the road and then ‘acted aggressively toward him’ before signalling for him to pull over.
The incident happened Thursday in a quiet residential neighborhood after the unidentified injured driver followed Painter to his home.
The men got into a fight and Painter pulled out a knife and stabbed the other man, who staggered back to his car, where his five-year-old son, who was not harmed, was still sitting, Garcia said.
Painter, who was freed on bail, told the Mercury News: ‘By the time I turned my car off, he walked onto the grass and went to my car door.
‘He pushed me against my car and struck me in the face.
‘We started to brawl because I needed to protect myself.’
A neighbor called the incident ‘horrifying’, according to NBC Bay Area.
Betty Paul said: ‘A road rage incident is tragic because so many innocent people can be harmed by someone else’s rage
‘But to bring it into our neighborhood, which is really a very nice neighborhood… it’s kind of scary.’
Read More: 5-Year-Old Watches His Father Get Stabbed in Apparent Road Rage Dispute: San Jose Police
