Hammer-wielding woman smashes windshield during road rage incident in Exposition Park area

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A road rage incident turned violent when a hammer-wielding woman smashed the windshield of a mother who was driving her teenage daughters Monday afternoon.

The incident occurred on Denker Avenue between 39th Street and Rolland Curtis Place in the Exposition Park area just before 1:30 p.m.

The victim, Jennifer Gonzalez, was driving her teenage daughters to the movie theater when they noticed a woman tailgating them.

Gonzalez has two cameras on her SUV, and the rear facing one captured what led up to the incident.

"She was like kind of tailgating me, but then I realized she was stopping on the stop sign. She was just going through them and that's when she crashed twice," said Gonzalez.

After a couple of attempts to illegally pass Gonzalez on the narrow Denker road, the driver finally crossed into oncoming traffic to go around her.

Gonzalez and all three teenage girls in her car assumed that the impatient driver would speed away, but they were wrong.

"She swerved and blocked me," said Gonzalez.

The dash camera only caught the corner of the trunk opening, but they could see the driver was grabbing something. They feared for the worst.

"I was just like, please don't let it be a gun, but it was my whole mindset at that moment and then when I see her with the hammer I'm like 'oh lord'," said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez's daughter in the passenger seat pulled out her cell phone just as the woman used the hammer to smash the windshield of their car.

"She looked like she wanted to hurt me as soon as she got off," said Gonzalez. "My whole thing was, if I get down there for sure I'm gonna get hurt, which whatever if it's not avoidable whatever, but I have my kids I don't want them to see me get hurt."

No one was hurt, and after a couple swings, the hammer-wielding woman hopped back in the white SUV, which had no license plate on the front or back, and finally sped off.

Gonzalez said is still shaken up and doesn't think the Los Angeles Police Department is taking this road rage incident seriously.

She took all the videos to the police and said she was told to report it online as vandalism because she wasn't hit with the hammer.

"They said it was directed to the car, but I saw her as soon as she got out I knew like our eyes were looking at it like I knew she wanted to hurt me," said Gonzalez.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated the incident happened in Leimert Park, but it actually happened closer to the Exposition Park area.