Video shows Benton official’s alleged road rage assault of driver over phone
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Security video corroborates victim’s account of McKay grabbing man.
- Prosecutors charged McKay with theft, assault and lying; AG assumed case.
- Surveillance shows McKay following vehicle two miles and deleting phone video.
Security camera footage released Monday shows the confrontation that led to criminal charges against a Benton County commissioner over a road rage incident in Kennewick.
Commissioner Will D. McKay Jr., 45, is charged with grabbing a driver and stripped away his cellphone in an effort to delete a video the man was taking of him.
McKay is charged with first-degree theft, fourth-degree assault and lying to police. He’s expected to enter a plea to the charges on Wednesday.
At the time, he denied to police that he touched the other driver, claiming that man was the aggressor, court documents said.
The Washington State Attorney General’s Office is handling McKay’s case because it would be a conflict of interest for the Benton County Prosecutor’s Office.
The AG’s office cited the video clips in its affidavit of probable cause to charge McKay in the Oct. 18 incident.
Kennewick police released the security camera footage to the Tri-City Herald under a Washington Public Records Act request.
What the video shows
The first clips show Alvaro Jimenez, 46, of Kennewick, pull up in a Mini-Cooper to the Pick Me Up coffee shop near the 27th Avenue roundabout. The footage shows McKay park nearby in a Dodge Ram pickup.
McKay told investigators he followed the Mini-Cooper because the driver was “driving erratically” and “flipping people off” near the roundabout at Union Street. The released video clips do not show anything from the roundabout.
Court documents say Jimenez ordered a drink from the coffee stand. One video clip shows him at the drive-thru window talking with the barrista for about four minutes, as McKay’s truck can be seen parked nearby.
Jimenez pulls onto 27th Avenue and McKay follows him for two miles north on Highway 395 to the Gold’s Gym parking lot near Clearwater Avenue.
A security camera at Graze – a nearby drive-thru sandwich restaurant – shows part of the Gold’s Gym parking lot.
A video clip shows the men driving through the lot looking for parking spots. Jimenez parks in a row nearer to the camera, while McKay finds a spot closer to the front of the gym.
Video shows Jimenez get out of his Mini-Cooper, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, and walk toward the gym. He has his mango drink from the coffee stand and appears to take out his cellphone as he’s walking through the parking lot.
Jimenez later told police he noticed the truck following him when he pulled out of the coffee stand parking lot and drove to the gym.
When Jimenez gets closer to the pickup truck, McKay, who is much taller than Jimenez, approaches and appears to grab him from behind.
Jimenez told police that’s when McKay wrestled away his phone and deleted a video. The struggle and confrontation lasts less than 10 seconds.
After the altercation, the two men and a third person appear to end up in a heated conversation. At the end of it, McKay gets back into his pickup and pulls away from the lot.
Police arrived after McKay left.
What court documents say
Jimenez told investigators he was using is phone to record McKay because he didn’t know why he was being followed and worried about what was going to happen.
Court documents alleged McKay “bear hugged” him and pinned Jimenez’s arms against his body and took the phone away.
Jimenez said he demanded his phone back, but McKay allegedly refused and deleted the video, court documents said.
A witness who reported seeing the confrontation said McKay only returned the phone after she said she was calling the police.
Police have not said if video from the phone has been recovered.
Investigators later linked the rented Dodge Ram to McKay and called him. The commissioner agreed to come to the police station to talk with police, court documents said.
When McKay was arrested, he allegedly said, “If I knew it was a crime to take this phone, I wouldn’t have done it,” court documents said.
McKay has been a member of the three-person commission since winning election in 2020. The commissioners are the county’s legislative authority and control the county’s budget.