Provided
An Amazon truck driver allegedly put one man in the hospital and caused traffic to back up during a rush-hour road rage incident on Interstate 70 on Tuesday.
Truck driver Gayrat Kurbanov, 34, was allegedly driving aggressively west-bound through South Canyon around 5 p.m. Dec. 17, which prompted a pickup truck driver to pull over in front of the vehicle.
According to passengers of the pickup, Kurbanov had been driving closely to the truck, and almost hit other cars.
The driver of the pickup truck, who had his wife, two children and another passenger in the car, got upset and brought his truck to a stop in front of the semi on I-70.
According to one of the passengers in the pickup, the semi ran into the truck once at that point.
The pickup driver approached Kurbanov’s window.
After shouting, the man returned to his pickup, and then Kurbanov allegedly tried to push the pickup out of the way with his semi.
The pickup driver returned to the semi, and Kurbanov allegedly took out a tire thumper, similar in size to a baseball bat, and beat the other man in the head with it.
A mobile phone video of the incident shows the encounter, including the semi running into the victim, who was standing in the fast lane, according to the Garfield County Sheriff’s deputy who reviewed the footage. After that, the pickup driver goes back to the semi.
In the video, Kurbanov is seen striking the other man with the tire thumper. The man falls to the ground “with his eyes wide open and glassy,” the deputy wrote in the probable cause statement.
At least four witnesses described the semi seemingly trying to run into the pickup driver, and then strike him with the tire thumper.
Other witnesses didn’t see what precipitated the altercation. Those in the pickup truck said the semi had been speeding, and almost hit two other cars. The semi had been tailing them, one of the passengers said, and at one point hit the back of the pickup while in the fast lane.
Westbound I-70 was shut down for a time as police reviewed the scene.
The pickup driver had a large laceration on the back of his head, which needed stitches and staples.
Kurbanov faces charges of first-degree assault, a class-3 felony, and misdemeanor reckless driving.
Kurbanov, who has a Brooklyn, N.Y. address, is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 9.
