Woman Brandished Gun With Kids In Car After I-94 Road Rage: Sheriff

RACINE COUNTY, WI — Interstate 94 was briefly closed Tuesday afternoon near Highway KR as deputies arrested a woman accused of brandishing a firearm in a road rage incident while she had children in her car, according to the Racine County Sheriff's Office.

A man told police he was driving south on I-94 that day when a semi-truck forced him to make an abrupt lane change that "must have upset" another driver who pointed a handgun at him and sped away, according to a statement posted to social media by the sheriff's office. The man called authorites just before 1 p.m., and sheriff's deputies said they soon made a "high-risk" traffic stop on the suspect's vehicle on the highway.

A video posted by the sheriff's office appeared to show deputies arresting the suspect during the traffic stop. Deputies verbally ordered the 33-year-old woman from Milwaukee to walk backward toward them as she held her hands in the air, the video showed. The sheriff's office identified the woman as Leyshla D. Rios Del Valle.

After authorites arrested Rios Del Valle, they approached her vehicle and found a 12-year-old and 3-year-old both secured in the back seat, the sheriff's office said. Deputies put the children in a squad car for safety, according to the sheriff's office.

According to the sheriff's office, when deputies interviewed Rios Del Valle she said it was the other vehicle making aggressive maneuvers. She admitted to grabbing the gun from the glove box "and may have raised it above the door frame so the other driver could see the firearm," the sheriff's office said.

The suspect also told deputies that she never pointed the firearm at the driver and that the gun was not loaded at all, according to the sheriff's office.

When deputies searched the car they found an unloaded 9mm Taurus G2c in the glovebox and a magazine with four rounds in a small backpack in the passenger seat, the sheriff's office said.

"Any irresponsible use of firearms – during a road rage incident or any other time – will not be tolerated in Racine County," Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said in a statement. "The Sheriff’s Office will aggressively respond to these types of calls to ensure safety and take the offender to jail. This case is especially concerning because two innocent children were involved."