April 21–27: Road Rage Confrontation Ends With Stabbing

Taking a stab at road rage

A 41-year-old man was stabbed last week after pursuing the driver who cut him off to his Orangevale home, a few miles north of Fair Oaks.

The road rage incident began on Hazel Avenue around East Roseville Parkway in Roseville last Thursday afternoon, when the victim says an erratically driven gold Daewoo Legarza sedan cut off his Chevy quad-cab truck in the roadway.

Rather than brush off the offense, the victim followed the sedan onto a side street, stopping in the 8800 block of Steven Avenue in Orangevale. The victim and a 23-year-old man later identified as Adam Welk and a resident of that neighborhood exited their vehicles and met each other in the street, where Welk stabbed the victim in the side with a knife, leaving a 1-inch-by-quarter-inch wound, according to crime scene investigators, said Sacramento County sheriff's spokesman Deputy Jason Ramos.

Welk then allegedly used the same blade to puncture the victim’s front tire, at which time Welk’s neighbors came out and chased the victim off.

“He felt threatened by their presence and by being outnumbered so he fled for his safety,” Ramos said.

A sheriff’s report says the victim was able to obtain help from another citizen. Welk was identified at the scene and arrested, though no online court records of his arraignment were available.

Asked about the investigative scrutiny the victim’s actions may have put him under, Ramos said the victim “had many other options he could have exercised other than what he chose to do.”

Violent jealousy

Two buddies drinking in a garage may sound like a good time, but it proved a recipe for cracked ribs last week in Orangevale, a few miles east of Fair Oaks.

According to sheriff’s officials, Michael King, 47, of Orangevale, and his 56-year-old male host began arguing about work the evening of April 26. Specifically, King became upset that the victim had found work and not offered to share the prosperity with King, Ramos said.

The victim told sheriff’s officers that King knocked him to the ground and kicked him several times in the ribs. A sheriff’s report says the victim’s wife was present during the attack.

Emergency room staff who treated the victim told officers the stomping resulted in broken ribs.

Sheriff’s officers located King at his residence in the 8700 block of Blythe Avenue, less than three miles from the victim’s home, and arrested him without incident.

A Michael John King was arraigned Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court on one felony count of battery causing gross bodily injury.

Gunshots draw attention

Popping off gunshots is not an acceptable way to celebrate a social gathering.

Two Sacramento apartment dwellers learned that the night of Easter, when sheriff’s officers responded to their apartment complex in the 4000 block of Orange Grove Avenue in Sacramento, a few miles west of Fair Oaks.

According to department spokesman Ramos, a tenant witnessed one of his neighbors, Ramiro Solis-Aguilera, 21, firing shots outside in the complex. The tenant contacted the property owner, who called the authorities.

When officers arrived, they found Solis-Aguilera and several other subjects “kicking back” in the living room of 20-year-old Anthony Northrop’s apartment, Ramos said.

A probation search of the apartment located a handgun in the kitchen cabinet, and a cellphone was found on Northrop that contained evidence of drug sales, said a sheriff’s report. Officers’ suspicions were seemingly confirmed when they discovered marijuana and a digital scale in Northrop’s vehicle.

Northrop was arrested on drug charges, while Solis-Aguilera was arrested on weapons charges.