Police confirm that the hammer attack at a Virginia gas station this week was racially motivated.
On Wednesday, April 5, Bob and Kathy stopped at a Caroline County gas station on their way home from Florida. The two were driving their Porsche and towing a boat back to their home in Massachusetts. While Bob was refueling, he noticed a woman across the station yelling at him. "I hear this woman yelling something about a message," Bob said in a statement. "I don't know who she's talking to...She gets in my face and says, 'You got a message for me with your fancy boat?'" At this point, she began punching and clawing at his face. Authorities later identified the woman as Angela Jones. Jones leaves and says she's "got something" for the family's boat. She pulled a hammer out of her vehicle. Police allege that Jones took her hammer to the victims' Porsche and boat, before again turning her attack on Bob. "She clawed him," Caroline County Sheriff Tony Lippa told the media. "He took her to the ground to prevent her from doing any more damage."
While on the ground, Jones again clawed at the victim's face, leaving him bloodied and bruised. Eventually, she was able to get off the ground and flee the scene in her jeep. Luckily for investigators, a witness was able to capture her face and license plate on his phone's camera.
The manhunt took law enforcement all the way to New Jersey. Jones was arrested there and is currently being held in the Essex County, New Jersey jail awaiting extradition to Virginia. She is charged with malicious wounding, assault and destruction of property charges. Additional charges are likely as police consider the hammer attack to be a hate crime.
