Snack Attack Epidemic in Virginia: Twinkie Defense Won't Fly

Just in, news of the third known road rage case this past year in Virginia involving a fast-food item hurled at another motorist.

Bill Brubaker's story in today's Washington Post has the details, and follows.

Commuter Charged in Route 1 Snack Attack

A lane change.

A finger.

And — splat! — a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

Those are just the facts, ma'am, as authorities in Virginia unravel the third known road rage case in a year involving a fast-food item hurled at a motorist.

Spotsylvania County authorities arrested Latasha M. Johnson, 25, of Stafford on Wednesday after she allegedly threw a Blizzard Flavor Treat at another car on Route 1 in Massaponax, just south of Fredericksburg.

Johnson was charged with throwing a missile at an occupied vehicle, a felony charge that attracted national attention when another 25-year-old woman was convicted of the same offense in January.

That caper came to be known as the "McMissile" case, because the item in question was a large McDonald's cup filled with ice.

The Blizzard incident has some of the same markings as that of the McMissile, although Johnson was in the passenger's seat when she allegedly vented her anger.

Jessica Hall of Jacksonville, N.C., said she threw the McDonald's cup in frustration last July 2 when a driver cut in front of her twice on I-95 in Stafford County. The unemployed mother of three whose Marine husband was serving in Iraq became an object of sympathy from people across the nation who felt her jail sentence — two years — was too harsh. She ended up serving seven weeks before being released to her family and a crush of media.

Two days after she got out of the slammer, a Loudoun County man was charged with tossing a cup of coffee from his car into another vehicle, then briefly fighting with the other driver at a Fairfax County intersection.

Wednesday's incident unfolded about 5:15 p.m. when the alleged victim — a 30-year-old woman driving a Ford Explorer — changed from the right lane to the left on the part of Route 1 known as Jefferson Davis Highway.

The woman looked in her rearview mirror and noticed the driver of an Oldsmobile making an obscene gesture at her.

"She was giving her the, ah, finger gesture," a Spotsylvania sheriff's spokeswoman, Sgt. Liz Enslen, said yesterday.

The Explorer driver, whose name was not released by the sheriff's office, quickly responded.

"She gave her the gesture back," Enslen said.

The Oldsmobile driver apparently followed the Explorer driver into a nearby subdivision, where Johnson allegedly threw a cup of Blizzard out of the Oldsmobile's front passenger window.

The ice cream-and-candy treat smeared parts of the Explorer, including the hood and driver's-side door, authorities said.

Enslen said she did not know the flavor of the Blizzard that Johnson tossed.

The Explorer driver wrote down the Oldsmobile's license plate number, then phoned the sheriff's office. Deputy Brian Hammond responded, took a report and contacted the owner of the Oldsmobile, who gave him Johnson's name.

"The woman who was driving the Oldsmobile said that the victim cut her off when she switched from the right lane to the left lane," Enslen said. "And that, I think, is what made them angry enough to, you know, give that gesture."

Johnson told Hammond that she threw the Blizzard and was arrested, Enslen said. She appeared before a magistrate Wednesday night and was released on $2,000 bond. Possible sentences include one to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine, authorities said.

Johnson did not respond to a message left on her home answering machine yesterday. Virginia driving records show she has paid fines for driving with an expired registration in 2001 and for speeding four times between 2000 and 2003.

The alleged victim declined a request for an interview yesterday.

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It's not a jungle out there — it's a blizzard.