Mar 31, 2008 11:37 pm US/Eastern
Maybe A First For Long Island: Car Wash Rage!
Annoyed Customer Allegedly Uses Vehicle As Battering Ram Against Defenseless Computer Control Unit
ELMONT, N.Y. (CBS) ―
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A man has been arrested for allegedly destroying private property in a fit of car wash rage.
CBS
A Queens man is charged with using his truck to in a fit of anger. But this isn't a case of road rage; it's a case of car wash rage.
The victim is a $12,000 computer control unit, which now sits crumpled and useless in a garbage pile.
The accused is 37-year-old Assi Touti of Queens.
And the scene of the crime? Mr. Hand Car Wash in Elmont on Long Island. George Zeid is a co-owner.
"The guy said the car was not clean enough, so just like with any customer, if you're not satisfied with the wash we do whatever's necessary, which is put the car back through the rewash, a free rewash I might say," Zeid said.
But witnesses say Touti decided not to wait, even though he only had one car in front of him.
"Customer got impatient," car wash employee Frank Conti said. "Basically threatened to run over the computer."
And when the cars behind him wouldn't back out Conti says that's exactly what Touti did.
"It was right here. It sits right here like this," Conti said pointing to the spot where the computer had been. "What he did was he came in against it, knocked it over, and then he ran it over three or four times over here. Spinning his wheels. Completely irate."
Conti says he and two other employees were trapped between the computer cart and the fence. Zeid is just glad no one was injured.
When asked if he had ever seen anything like that before, Zeid was dumbfounded.
"I haven't, I've never seen anything like it nor heard of it," Zeid said.
So instead of driving off in a clean car, Touti drove off in a cop car. He has been charged with three counts of reckless endangerment, and one count of criminal mischief.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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