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A woman is behind bars after allegedly pulling a gun on another driver during a road rage incident sparked by the other driver's "vaccinated" bumper sticker.
The incident occurred this past Sunday, according to a police report from the Albuquerque Police Department (APD), when Christina Blair, 33, allegedly began honking and yelling at fellow driver Gabriel Chavez as the pair were traveling down the road. Police said that the trouble began when Blair became angered by a bumper sticker on Chavez's vehicle indicating that he was vaccinated.
Chavez tried to tell Blair to drive around him, the police report said, but she allegedly continued to become upset and followed Chavez through traffic. Police said that, when stopped at a red light, "Christina threw something at [Chavez's] vehicle," which Blair later told police was an empty water bottle.
As the incident escalated, police say that Chavez "attempted to drive away from the situation," but ended up accidentally backing up into Blair's car. This caused Chavez to pull into a nearby parking lot to try and exchange insurance information.
At this point, police said, an "extremely irate" Blair then "reached into her vehicle and retrieved a handgun." Chavez then told police that he saw Blair "rack" the gun—meaning that she pulled the slide of the firearm all the way back to chamber a round. It was at this point police said that Chavez backed away and called 911.
The first officer to make contact said that Chavez showed him a video in which "you can clearly see Christina reach into her vehicle and produce a weapon...it also looks like Christina does run the slide and make the gun ready for live fire."
The video captured Blair's license plate number, allowing APD officers to track her to her house, where the police report says Blair admitted the incident began because she honked at Chavez after seeing his bumper sticker. Police said that Blair also admitted to throwing a water bottle at Chavez's car, as well as admitting to having a gun in her hand because Chavez "was scaring her and continued to close distance on her."
"Throughout the course of my investigation, I was able to determine that Christina did have an opportunity to leave the area in her vehicle," the police report said. "But instead overtly reached into her vehicle and retrieving a handgun threatening Gabriel with the firearm."
Blair, who told police that she works at an Albuquerque Dodge dealership as a salesperson, was eventually arrested on a felony charge of assault with an aggravated weapon and booked into the local county jail. She has a court hearing Thursday during which prosecutors will argue for her additional detention, with a court document saying: "No release conditions will reasonably protect the safety of any other person or the community."
Blair was previously convicted of aggravated assault and tampering with evidence in 2007, according to prosecutors.
Newsweek has reached out to the APD for comment.
