AG Reviewing Road Rage Complaint Involving DA Rachael Rollins

BOSTON — A road rage complaint involving Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is under review by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The complaint, filed with the Boston Police Department by Dorchester resident Katie Lawson, alleges the district attorney flashed her blue lights and threatened her with a ticket when Lawson tried to merge in front of her.

The encounter happened at the South Bay shopping center on Christmas Eve. Lawson alleges Rollins yelled, "You don't want to try me today lady, you really don't," and moved her Chevy Tahoe a few inches from Lawson's car.

Lawson claims Rollins then told her, "You want me to give you a ticket? I will give you a ticket," before turning on her strobe lights and siren.

"Apparently, when she felt like she had done enough or said what she felt like, she then went right back to her [phone] call," Lawson wrote in a statement to LiveBoston617, which first reported the story along with Turtleboy Sports. "She had her cell phone in her hand the entire time, breaking the hands- free law."

Lawson's passenger took a picture of the Tahoe's license plate, which she said authorities traced to the district attorney's office.

Rollins denied any wrongdoing and puts the onus on Lawson for the heated encounter. In a Jan. 8 interview with Howie Carr, Rollins referred to South Bay as a "haven for emotionally disturbed people and people with substance abuse disorders."

"This person was driving very erratically in the parking lot, screeched to a halt and then jerked forward and almost, coming into the wrong way of traffic, hit my car," Rollins later told Carr. "But in a bizarre way was coming like three miles an hour per inch. So I beeped, they don't pay attention, two beeps, they don't pay attention."

Rollins said she tapped her siren to get the driver's attention and told her she was in the wrong lane.

The district attorney has hit back against media attention over the complaint, lashing out at a Boston 25 producer and photographer who approached her outside her house last Friday to ask about her encounter with Lawson.

Matthew Brelis, a spokesperson for Rollins, said the network's actions were inappropriate.

"Some 48 hours after our country witnessed an attack on elected officials, an unknown vehicle with an unknown man approached her in front of her home where she is the mother and guardian to three young girls," Brelis said in a statement to Boston 25 and The Boston Globe. "And she responded not as an elected official, but as a mother, an aunt, and a caregiver who believes her primary responsibility is to love and protect her family."

Brelis declined to comment further while the office awaits the results of the attorney general's review.