Neighbor Charged in Road Rage Case at Braden River Elementary

Manatee County detectives arrested a 45-year-old man in connection with on another man in what appears to be a case of road rage at . 

John Sabin was charged with aggravated battery after the Manatee County Sheriff's Office says he was positively identified as the person who attacked Lakewood Ranch resident John Lee. Lee and Sabin are neighbors in Lakewood Ranch.

Lee, who works in IT for Manatee County, can give a detailed description of the man who attacked him in the parking lot of his child's elementary school during morning drop off. What he can't tell you is who, besides his 10-year-old son Christopher, witnessed the attack that left him with a broken rib, punctured lung and six stitches in his face.

"I was more concerned about Christopher being there than anybody else," Lee said Thursday afternoon from his hospital bed in the emergency room at as he waited on an X-ray and final tests before being released.

The 50-year-old father was so concerned about his son that after the attack, he got up from the ground and walked his son into Braden River Elementary to drop him off as he normally would. They stopped at the boys' restroom so Lee could clean himself up while trying to convince his son that he was unharmed.

"I told him things happen, I'm all right," Lee said. "People just go overboard sometimes."

A man in a black sports car had gotten behind Lee and his son in their Lakewood Ranch neighborhood where the speed limit is 30 mph. The man was tailgating, practically from the moment he pulled behind him, Lee said. His driving got aggressive and then even more dangerous as he tried to pass him several times on the two lane road, including at a blind curve and across a median, according to Lee.

Lee says he sped up to try to appease the guy at first, but then slowed back down to the speed limit. When the driver tried to pass on the curve, Lee sped up again to try to prevent him from passing in the residential area. Looking back, Lee now thinks he should have just let the driver maneuver around him and speed away.

Instead, Lee says, the man followed him and his son all the way to the elementary school parking lot, where he jumped out of the car and started screaming obscenities and telling Lee to get out of the car. He even tried to pull the locked car door open, says Lee.

Lee said when he couldn't get the door open the motorist screamed, "I'm gonna kill you. I know where you live."

After Lee tried to maneuver around the guy and his car and drive away, the other man spit on the driver's side of Lee's car and walked off, Lee said. He and his son sat in the car for a little while longer and then finally got out to head into school. That's when Lee saw the man coming at him out of the corner of his eye. Lee said he was on the ground before he could even react.

His attacker was taller and heavier than Lee, but about the same age, he said. "He might have been younger, but he wasn't much younger."

The other man pummeled Lee and then got back into his car and sped off. Lee doesn't know whether anyone saw the attack.

Lee said Thursday evening that he can understand anger on the road, but still cannot fathom the attack, especially in front of a child.

"You get in a car and you think you're isolated," he said. "But once you step outside of the car, you have gone overboard."

He said his assailant's actions were way beyond anger. And that those action's threatened his son's well being.

Even as Lee tried to downplay the attack in front of his son, he said, it was clear the boy was scared. The child didn't even want to follow his father into the bathroom as he tried to clean up. Even as Lee tried to staunch the blood running down his face with a paper towel, he walked his son to the cafeteria, where he signed him in for a before school program. He wanted to keep everything as normal as possible.

By then someone from the school had called emergency services and the sheriff's department. An ambulance brought Lee to the hospital. He had to see a pulmonologist for the collapsed lung and had several X-rays and other tests.

Anyone with information in this case can call the at 941-747-3011.