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COLONIE – A Watervliet pair was arraigned in Town Court on a host of charges related to an incident of road rage where they allegedly ran another car off the road, beat the car with baseball bats and a frying pan and screamed racial epithets at a mother and child.
According to State Police, the incident began on Thursday, May 10, at around 3:11 p.m. in the westbound lane of Alternate Route 7. It continued first northbound on I-87.
According to an interview the victim, Natia Shim, gave Channel 6, she had just picked up her son, Nace, from Troy High School and stopped at the Speedway on the way home.
Phillip Quandt, 50, and Kristen Wright, 51, along with others, followed her car from there. They ultimately ran the car off the road and beat it with baseball bats and a frying pan, she told Channel 6.
“They were yelling that they were white supremacists and we n-words do not belong in their country,” she told the news station. “It’s a life or death situation, they threatened to kill us.”
Quandt and Wright are charged with felony criminal mischief as well as the misdemeanors of reckless endangerment and menacing.
Quandt was remanded to the Albany County jail on $10,000 bail and Wright on $5,000 bail. An order of protection was issued for the complainants.
Shim told Channel 6 that she believes the men who beat her car mistakenly thought her son stole a car radio from one of them. They too called State Police, according to Channel 6.
The investigation is continuing and officials are asking anyone with any information or who may have witnessed the incident to call State Police at 518-783-3211.
