Road rage or self defense? Video shows violent parking lot confrontation

HOUSTON -- A road rage in a Texas Best Buy parking lot escalated quickly and ended with a man's leg being run over by a car. The end was caught on camera.

Both men asked to remain anonymous, so we spoke with their attorneys.

"Don't move your car. Don't move your car. Ahhhh you're killing me," you can hear a man saying as he was run over by another man.

It started as a fender bender last Tuesday in the Best Buy parking lot near the Galleria. A man in a Mercedes backed into a Nissan. Police say the man in the Nissan got out and started yelling and cursing at the other driver.

Josh Schaffer represents the man in the Mercedes.

"It quickly became a dangerous situation from my client's perspective," says Josh Schaffer who represents the driver of the Mercedes. "He did not know whether the other gentleman was armed, mentally ill, intoxicated, high. And he needed to remove himself from a threatening situation as quickly as possible to ensure his own safety."

Schaffer says his client tried to get away and call the police. In the process, he ran over the other man's leg.

"He told the police he didn't know he had driven over the guy's leg until he came back afterwards and discovered that's what had happened."

Police and the Harris County District Attorney's Office say he went to a nearby location and came back a few minutes later. They also say the man in the Nissan admitted he was the aggressor. His attorney, Steven Stratso, tells a different story.

"All we know is he was trying to do the legal thing, which is exchange insurance info and notify police that there was an accident," Stratso says.

Stratso tells Eyewitness News when his client mentioned the police, the man in the Mercedes tried to take off.

"My client tried to prevent him from doing that and as he was doing that, he was in front of the vehicle at the time, and the defendant proceeded to put it in drive and turned the vehicle. And as he did so, he ran over my client."

Stratso says his client has life-long injuries that may keep him from starting his new job as a high school teacher. He plans to sue.

The Harris County DA's Office chose not to charge the man in the Mercedes based on the information from police, pending further investigation.

He did get a ticket for backing into the other driver.