Police investigating hit-and-run report

COEUR d’ALENE — Rachael Johnson has no doubt that a driver that bumped her and another man with his car during Wednesday’s rally in Coeur d'Alene to support President Donald Trump did so intentionally.

“You don’t accidentally bump into a person,” she said Friday. “A lot of people were yelling at him to stop.”

“It was quite frightening,” she added.

The St. Maries woman was at the center of an incident at U.S. 95 and Haycraft Avenue that reportedly escalated to include threats and weapons. A man is facing possible charges of aggravated assault and leaving the scene of an injury accident.

Johnson said it shouldn’t have happened.

“If the guy had just parked his car and come over and talked to us,” she said in a phone interview with The Press. “He could have talked to us. We’re reasonable people.”

Johnson was one of about 500 who took part in the two-hour rally from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. that saw people waving American flags, Trump banners and signs to passersby. Many drivers honked in return as they passed the crowd that stretched on the shoulder of U.S. 95 from Appleway to Haycraft avenues.

It was peaceful until about 12:15. Johnson was standing near Haycraft, holding a sign that read “Stop the Steal,” and waving an American flag when people standing in front of her began leaping back from the road. It was then she saw a gray vehicle slowly coming toward her.

Just as the car was about to hit her, she said a man pulled her back.

“He probably saved me from getting totally run down,” she said. “I would have been knocked over backward.”

Johnson said she was bumped in the thigh by the car and pounded on the car’s hood with her flag. She said the man who pulled her away was struck on the leg by the vehicle, fell across and pounded on the car’s hood, then rolled off in front of it and onto the ground.

The car stopped when a woman stepped in front of it and yelled, backed up, then accelerated away and turned the corner, said Johnson. The man on the ground suffered a bruised knee and his shoe was knocked off, but he avoided serious injury and declined medical assistance.

The middle-aged driver, with people yelling at him, turned right, then into a parking lot. Witnesses said they thought he was stopping.

Bill Divine of Pinehurst, attending the rally with wife Julie, gave chase on foot while shouting for someone to call 911.

He said the driver's exit from the parking lot was blocked by a delivery truck. He said as he came closer, the man stepped from the car, crouched on the ground next to driver's seat, and pointed a handgun at him.

“He said, ‘I will shoot you,’" Divine said.

He said he told the man he had just struck someone, it was a hit-and-run, and he was making a citizen’s arrest. He said as he backed up, he told the man to put the gun down and yelled for people to get down.

“He told me twice, ‘I will shoot you,’” Divine said.

Meantime, at least one other person with a gun arrived behind Divine.

Then, Divine said, the man waved his gun toward the driver of the moving truck, told him to move it, and drove away.

Police arrived and interviewed several people. They did not release the driver’s name.

A partly redacted police report said that he struck a pedestrian at U.S. 95 and Haycraft, stopped and was rushed by numerous people, and pulled a gun as did several other people. The report said the man drove to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.

The report referred to offenses of aggravated assault and leaving the scene of an injury accident.

The KCSO, on its Facebook page, wrote: “It was reported by other drivers in the area that protesters were causing a traffic hazard by being in the roadway after the crosswalk light had changed. Officers remained in the area to monitor the traffic hazard and determined that protesters were crossing the street appropriately.”

Julie Divine said protesters were about 5 feet off the road when the driver came in their direction.

“He purposely swung into the group,” she said.

The man who pulled Johnson to safety and was himself struck ended up on the hood of the car, rolled off and fell in front of it, Julie Divine said.

She said she jumped in front of the vehicle and yelled at the driver.

“Stop, he’s on the ground,” she said she screamed.

The man was able to get up and walk around. She asked him several times if he was OK.

“He kept saying he was fine,” she said.

Bill Divine said he feared for his life.

“The whole thing stinks,” he said. “There’s some guy out there who said he’s going to shoot me twice and I don’t know if he’s in jail or not.”

Johnson said she believes the driver may have lost his temper when he saw the protesters and felt they were in his way.

She said people have the right to peaceful protest, which is what they were doing, when the driver came toward them.

Such actions, threats of physical harm, are an attempt to silence the voices of the common people, Johnson said.

“What he has done is one more step trying to take away my First Amendment,” she said. “We don’t want to use the Second Amendment to defend our lives. We want to use the first.”

She believes there is great deception in the country's political process, and the outcome of the presidential election was an example of it.

“They’re putting the common man in the position of having to use the Second Amendment to defend their lives," she said.

Johnson, who said she has been a teacher of the Constitution, said people need to talk to each other and show respect, regardless of political beliefs.

“How are we going to help each other if we don’t communicate?” she asked.