SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) – The driver in a shocking road rage incident is now behind bars. It turns out, he’s an undocumented immigrant who tried to destroy the evidence.
On Sunday evening, motorcyclist Darin Hendrickson got into a heated dispute with a driver. The car then swerved, slammed into him and left him tumbling on the sidewalk.
“I thought that he was definitely trying to kill me on purpose,” recalled Hendrickson.
Detectives found and arrested the driver, 30-year-old Magdiel Medrano-Bonilla. Deputies say he had stripped the car and had plans to destroy it.
“This suspect knew what he did, he knew what he was doing, he was following the story and he was doing everything he could to destroy the evidence involved,” said Sheriff Tom Knight.
Bonilla is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Sheriff Knight says he was detained at the US-Mexico border in 2014, and later released, with his deportation hearing scheduled for 2019.
Knight says there’s a desperate need for immigration reform.
“Who knows how many other crimes he’s committed because he’s hard to locate because he’s illegal? He has no driver’s license, nothing to identify him,” said Knight.
Hendrickson was not shocked.
“It doesn’t surprise me because he didn’t stick around, there were problems from the get-go,” he said.
Instead, he’s just thankful to be alive.
“I’m standing here, I’m able to breathe, I’m not in jeopardy of losing my freedom at all and I’ll be able to stand here another day and see my son,” said Hendrickson.
Bonilla was issued a $20,000 bond but ICE ordered a hold on him.
The biker was issued a citation as well.