A man accused of attacking a truck driver with a hammer during a road rage incident on a Massachusetts highway says he was actually defending himself.
The incident happened Monday on Interstate 495 in Bolton. Massachusetts State Police said the tractor-trailer driver, only identified as a 28-year-old Maine man, sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his head.
Police arrested 28-year-old Juan Marin and his brother, 23-year-old Javier Gutierrez Vargas, both of Dracut, after the Volkswagen GTI they were in was stopped at Marlborough Hospital.
Marin, a DoorDash driver, shared video with NBC10 Boston which he says shows the tractor-trailer driver antagonizing them on the highway.
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He says the driver eventually stopped to initiate a fight in the breakdown lane.
"He just stop, and he say, 'Imigrantes, come here, come here,'" Marin told NBC10 Boston. "With a hammer in his hands."
In court Tuesday, prosecutors said footage obtained by police tells a different story, and that Marin was seen hitting the other man several times "with what appeared to be a metal folding chair."
The truck driver told police Marin brake-checked him, causing his brakes to lock up, and that he came out of the truck with a hammer to check the brakes. Marin says that's not true.
"He was trying to hit me with the hammer," he said.
Marin also showed NBC10 Boston stitches on the back of his head, where he says the driver hit him.
"I don't hit him with the hammer, he hit me with the hammer," he said.
