Road Rage Arrest, Plainfield Pickup Driver Intentionally Crashes: JPD

JOLIET — The Joliet Police Department does not make many road rage arrests, but one just happened and now 54-year-old Plainfield resident David Pugh finds himself facing two charges, reckless conduct and felony criminal damage to property. Pugh is accused of ramming his pickup truck into another motorist last Thursday night and doing it on purpose.

According to Joliet police spokesman Dwayne English, the following set of events led to Pugh's capture by the Joliet police force:

• First, on May 2, at 8:49 p.m., Joliet police responded to Caton Ridge Drive and Clifton Court for a road rage disturbance. English said that Pugh may have intentionally crashed his pickup truck into another pickup truck.
• Officers determined that Pugh collided his truck into the passenger side of the other truck after believing that someone from this truck had fired a gun at him. The victim then drove away toward Clifton Court, at which time Pugh collided into the driver side of the victim’s truck.
• Officers found the information about the supposed gunfire not credible as they located no evidence that a gun was fired and learned that there was no gun seen during this incident.
• After a consent search of the victim’s truck, Joliet police did not find a gun, ammunition or spent shell casings.
• Pugh was placed into custody without incident.
• During this incident, Joliet police say they learned that Pugh had collided into a second vehicle on Caton Ridge Drive near Smokey Ridge Drive.
• In that case, an Infinity QX60 tried to go around Pugh’s vehicle, which was stopped in the middle of the roadway. Pugh’s vehicle then accelerated and struck the passenger side of the Infinity. Pugh was cited for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.

Pugh was ultimately given his notice to appear in court as per the SAFE-T-Act, authorities noted.