10 cars, multiple houses damaged during truck driver’s unauthorized use of company rig

10 vehicles and at least two houses were damaged during a truck driver’s rampage through a Maryland neighborhood. 

The incident happened on Sunday evening, December 3rd in Brooklyn Park, Maryland. 

According to ABC 2 Baltimore, 39-year-old James Michael Rzepnicki drove erratically down Doris Avenue in a white semi truck on Sunday evening, ramming cars and crashing through houses. 

“I had grabbed the trash cans. I had come up a little bit and I heard all of this rumbling and tumbling. I didn’t know what it sounded like. It sounded like a car didn’t have any wheels… like all of the wheels were off of it or something. It kept getting louder so I ran back. I ran back to the house,” said Alphonsine Harley, a resident of one of the homes damaged in the incident. 

As Harley reached the house, the rig crashed through her neighbors home before coming to rest against her porch. The driver then exited the cab and fled the scene on foot. 

“Once the truck came to rest against the porch, the driver of the truck trailer did flee the scene, but was apprehended a short distance away,” said Sgt. Kam Cooke of the Anne Arundel County Police Department.

“All the cars of the people who live here were all up on the curb, all up in the trees and everywhere. Everyone’s car smashed up, but the little red car,” said Harley. “I don’t know if they were chasing him or he was chasing them or whatever. He ran up on top of the car—the red car. If it wasn’t for that porch right there, they would have been in the house. He was up in the front of the porch. The truck was up in the porch.”

Police say that Rzepnicki was operating a company-owned rig without authorization at the time of the incident. 

No one was injured that day, and the reason behind the rampage is not yet clear, but Rzepnicki is now facing multiple charges, including first and second degree assault, and the malicious destruction of property in excess of a thousand dollars.

If you have any information, which could help detectives with this case, you’re asked to call 410-222-6135.