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A Taunton woman accused of intentionally driving into a man’s car a month ago after becoming enraged by a Trump bumper sticker pleaded not guilty Monday in Barnstable District Court to a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.
Chloe Wright, 25, also faces charges of vandalizing property and leaving the scene of property damage. She was released on $1,250 bail and was ordered to stay away from the victim.
On June 30, a man called Barnstable police to report a hit-and-run crash. He told responding officers he had been driving south on Bearses Way in Hyannis, and was stopped for a red light at the intersection of Route 28 when the driver of the car behind him began honking the horn, according to a police report.
The man continued driving onto Bassett Lane and the car followed, with the driver still honking, the man told police, according to the report. When he stopped again for a red light at the intersection with North Street, the driver also began yelling, the man said.
Thinking that something might be wrong with the back of his car, the man stepped out into the road. The driver began yelling at him about a Donald Trump bumper sticker on the back of his car, he told police.
“She said, ‘You voted for Trump?’” the man wrote in a statement. “I said yes. She called me a racist and several other names.”
As the man began recording the incident on his phone, the woman drove around his car, prompting him to step back into the driver’s side door opening, he told police, according to the report. The woman then drove at him and hit the open door, he said, according to the report.
“She bent my door and I had to lean back to avoid getting hit,” the man wrote. “She also hit the side of my car.”
The woman drove away down North Street, the man told police.
The man’s recording of the incident shows the woman’s car, a gray Honda Civic, drive around his car and hit the open driver’s-side door, according to the report. A statement by the man’s girlfriend, who was in the car with him during the incident, confirmed the man’s account, the report says.