First an Impala, then a dump truck.
An estranged husband said to be irate after a domestic dispute, allegedly took matters into his own hands – and a couple of automobiles – over the weekend in Los Angeles County by repeatedly ramming his likely-soon-to-be-ex-wife’s residence with both vehicles.
Videos of the incident have gone viral across various social media platforms – including Facebook and TikTok.
“Back up! Back up! Back up!” someone shouts in a video of the incident. “What the f—. What is doing? Oh!”
The frenzy of gear-shifting metal left the woman’s home damaged and appears to have totaled at least two parked cars in the neighborhood near 107th Street and Normandie Avenue. The incident occurred in the unincorporated South Los Angeles County community of Westmont, east of Inglewood.
In one, the dump truck can be seen repeatedly slamming into one – with a severely damaged front end – before pushing it onto a yard. As the truck backs up again, another car’s hood is run over.
A spokesperson with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told Law&Crime that an investigation is ongoing and the case had been assigned to a detective. The LASD official said they were unable to confirm the identity of those involved.
Patricia Dunn says the man responsible for the destruction is her husband, Ronald Dunn, according to Los Angeles CBS affiliate KCAL.
The couple is currently going through a divorce, she said. Earlier this month, she filed a restraining order against her husband, which upset him to the point of the violence with the vehicles.
According to the Sacramento Bee, that restraining order had yet to be served but the intended target learned about the forthcoming court directive and “lost his mind,” citing an LASD sergeant.
“A man under that kind of rage – who’s to say what he might do?” the wife told West Coast ABC flagship station KABC during a Monday interview. “He was trying to kill me. He really was.”
Asked about her thoughts in the moment, she added: “Fear. Fear. Complete fear. Because he was like a madman.”
Patricia Dunn said she was inside the home when the initial attack with the Impala occurred.
“I was just trying to stay out of the way,” she told KABC. “So I don’t know if he was drunk or under the influence. I never experienced anything like this in my life.”
Neighbor Journey Meggerson began filming the incident just after 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to KCAL.
“He first came with like a while Impala and tore up the garage door,” the neighbor told the outlet.
After the Impala, Ronald Dunn allegedly returned with a dump truck. The metal fence of the house is now bent down to the ground. There are large dents and cracks in the exterior walls.
Both Patricia Dunn and Meggerson faulted local authorities for the response time.
“If they had been here a little bit earlier, all of this damage wouldn’t have happened because he came back three times, and they weren’t even here,” Patricia Dunn told KCAL. Law enforcement reportedly arrived nearly 45 minutes after the first 911 call was made.
According to KABC, the LASD arrived on the scene “about” 30 minutes later “because the initial call came in as a traffic collision and not a crime.”
According to the caption on one of Meggerson’s TikTok videos of the incident, the location is “less than a mile away” from the nearest police station.
“Someone could have been seriously hurt and the lack of urgency from the [people] who are supposed to make us feel safe is terrible,” the neighbor wrote. “Raise awareness for emergencies in neighborhoods.”
The enraged husband reportedly returned multiple times – returning in the Impala after the episode with the dump truck.
“I don’t even want this house anymore,” Patrician Dunn told KCAL. “I want to put it up for sale and just move on because I’m not comfortable here anymore. I don’t know. He might come back. Who’s to say he’s not?”
The 63-year-old woman says her 62-year-old husband has been verbally abusive for some time now. In comments to KABC, she said she didn’t have anything nice to say about the man.
[image via screengrab/Journey Meggerson/TikTok]
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