An Atlanta-area man is facing criminal charges after hitting a family’s car and refusing to stop, apparently because the two women were Black.
The incident unfolded Monday afternoon in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, where victims Asia Lewis and Kimberly Carter were headed home from a day out with their 1-year-old godson, WSB-TV Atlanta reports. That’s when they said another driver clipped their side view mirror.
The man kept driving, however, and when they signaled for him to pull over, the women said he threatened them with a gun.
“He grabbed his gun and just put it on his dash, like he was trying to scare us or something,” Lewis told the outlet.
“I yelled out, ‘You don’t have to do all that, we’re not pointing a gun at you, or doing anything to you, we’re just trying to let you know that you hit my car,’” she recalled.
The driver was later identified as 59-year-old Stephen Abbott. While on the phone with 911, Abbott told the dispatcher why he’d refused to stop after the accident.
“I don’t know who these people are. I have no idea what they’re doing, but I am not going to stop in traffic for two black people in a beat-up old car,” he says on a clip of the 911 call obtained by WSB-TV. The man also accused the ladies of making disparaging remarks about his “family heritage.”
Lewis and Carter denied this, however, and said they only wanted Abbott’s insurance information.
Authorities arrived to arrest the suspect soon afterward, charging him with misdemeanor hit-and-run and pointing a gun.
Abbott has since been released on bond.
