Man sentenced 6 years for vicious road rage beating of elderly man

OLNEY, Md. - A Montgomery County judge handed down a 6-year sentence to a man found guilty of beating an elderly man during a road rage incident.

Art Walker has recovered from that attack, but said he still deals with some permanent physical and emotional damage.

"I hope nobody else my age has to go through this," said the 76-year-old man.

His wounds have since healed, but he will never forget the day last year when he ended up bloodied and in pain.

"I still don't understand why the guy did it," Walker said.

Back in May 2015, Walker said he was driving home to Olney when he encountered 25-year-old Ryan Wallace in a truck behind him. Things escalated quickly once Walker noticed Wallace seemed agitated.

"Obviously he didn't like the way I was driving," said Walker.

He said Wallace aggressively tailgated his car for eight miles until confronting him at an intersection of Route 108 and Bowie Mill Road. Walker called 911 during the chase and told the dispatcher, "I've got a crazy man on my tail. He is trying to run me off the road!"

As Walker was on the phone, Wallace reached into his car and yanked him out. You can hear the altercation and then the phone goes dead.

Walker: "Here he comes, here he comes."

Wallace: "You say something to me?"

Walker: "You wanna! Go ahead." (Inaudible, line drops)

Dispatcher: "Sir, can you hear me?"

"The next thing I know, he is at my door yanking me out of the car and pounding on me, beating me up," said Walker.

Wallace took off and left Walker beaten and bloody. Wallace was later arrested.

"It's really a tough situation when you have a young man in his 20s assaulting a [76]-year-old man," said Ramon Korionoff, spokesperson for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office. "And over what? A traffic altercation."

On Thursday, Wallace learned he will face prison time for his crime after he was found guilty for second-degree assault. Walker hopes what happened to him is a lesson to others.

"One thing it did teach me - don't get mad in the car," Walker told FOX 5. "I didn't deserve what happened to me. I don't think anybody does."