Images from the California Highway Patrol (CHP) show police arresting Nathaniel Walter Radimak, suspected of committing multiple assaults while driving a Tesla.
The Tesla driver believed to have been terrorizing California drivers in multiple road rage incidents is now in custody.
Nathaniel Walter Radimak, 36, was arrested Sunday by officers with the California High Patrol (CHP), according to a statement on Facebook.
“On Sunday, January 29, 2023, Mr. Nathaniel Walter Radimak was arrested by the California Highway Patrol’s Southern Division Major Crimes Unit in connection with assaults he is believed to have committed on January 11, 2023, while driving a Tesla, Model X, on State Route 2 near York Blvd, in the city of Los Angeles,” the statement says. “The assaults were captured on a dash-cam video and several leads were provided to our department by the public which led to the arrest.”
The alleged assaults took place in Glendale, located around 7 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
According to local news affiliate KCAL, the suspect was allegedly caught on camera swerving in front of another vehicle heading south on State Route 2, a nearly 90-mile highway that connects the beachside city of Santa Monica to the Angeles National Forest.
Dashcam footage shows a man with a face covering apparently exiting his car and approaching the driver’s side of the car he had purportedly just cut off. He is carrying what appears to be a metal pipe in his right hand. Although the footage doesn’t capture him hitting the window, at least three loud thuds are heard as the camera shakes, indicating that the driver’s side of the vehicle is being struck.
The masked man then gets back into the Tesla and leaves.
The driver of the car in that video told KCAL that he recorded the suspect trying to hit another car with the pole he was carrying. That driver was reportedly able to avoid being struck.
Local ABC News affiliate KABC reported that other drivers have reported similar violent encounters in nearby areas over the course of the last few months. One woman recorded the alleged suspect approaching and harassing her while she was in her car at a storage facility. She says she reported him to the management and left, but he followed her and confronted her at a red light.
Yet another woman said that the man attacked her car on the freeway after cutting her off.
KABC also reported that online sleuths have linked the suspect to punching a woman in the face in October 2021 and slashing another woman’s tires in March 2022. At least 10 people have said they have had frightening encounters with the suspect, according to KABC.
The CHP statement said Radimak was arrested in Torrance, about 30 miles south of where the alleged assaults occurred.
Online records indicate that Radimak has two outstanding warrants against him and he is being held on more than $5 million bail. He is currently in LAPD custody and facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon.