New video of a brazen public attack, captured on a witness's dashcam, appears to show a driver turning around in the middle of a busy D.C. intersection in order to chase down a person on a bicycle.
Police are now trying to track down the driver involved, and cyclist Nicole Van Dyke is explaining what happened before the camera started rolling.
The video shows the driver making a sudden U-turn to chase down Van Dyke, nearly crashing into oncoming traffic.
"When I made that first turn, [I thought] He's not going to do that, he's not going to go into the opposite lane," Van Dyke said. "But, you know, he was able to do it."
Van Dyke, a food delivery driver, claims it all started when the driver blocked her right-of-way, and got extremely close.
"He just keeps on kind of pushing, and at some point I get frustrated," said Van Dyke. "I hit his mirror with my hand."
Van Dyke says at a certain point, she got off the street and made her way onto the sidewalk. That's when she realized that the driver got out of his car and was running after her.
She says she put her hands up to protect herself. That's when she was punched, and her face hit a nearby metal railing.
"It hit me right in the teeth," Van Dyke said. "It went up into the roof of my mouth."
She says she cleaned herself up afterwards, then ended up finishing her delivery. But the pain persisted, so she went to the emergency room.
At the hospital, she was told she had a fractured tooth socket, and developed an infection.
"I mean, it's just like winning the lottery but in a bad way."
Van Dyke says she's remorseful for hitting the driver's mirror, but says she's had many close calls as a delivery person.
"I think I should have some way of telling a driver, 'hey, this is disrespectful, this is dangerous,'" she said. "Obviously that's not the way to do it."
D.C. Police are investigating this as an assault with significant bodily injury, but they're still looking for the suspect.
As for Van Dyke, the incident isn't slowing her down -- she's still making deliveries.
