A Lincoln, Nebraska, man was arrested after police say he rammed a skid-steer loader into several vehicles, including a police cruiser, during a rampage in southeast Lincoln on Sunday that was captured on video by several bystanders.
Samuel Peyrot, 36, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree assault, second-degree assault of an officer and criminal mischief following the alleged crime spree that began at the U-Stop convenience store near 73rd Street and Pine Lake Road at about 2:30 p.m.
There, police say Peyrot rammed several vehicles with the loader before driving to the Home Depot at 70th Street and Nebraska Parkway — about a third of a mile away — where he drove into more vehicles.
Peyrot then wheeled the skid loader toward a police cruiser responding to the incident and rammed into it, according to a Lincoln Police Department news release and video accounts from bystanders that circulated widely on social media Sunday. The officer then got out of his vehicle and pointed his service weapon at the loader before Peyrot was taken into custody.
The officer, who was not injured, did not fire the weapon.
Police say multiple vehicles were damaged. One man inside of a truck had minor injuries. Peyrot also damaged the exterior of two nearby businesses, police say.
In an update Sunday night, Lincoln police said the skid loader was owned by Peyrot's employer and that Peyrot had transported the skid loader to the U-Stop gas station with a company-owned truck and trailer.
Dario Briseno Diaz of Lincoln was sitting in a truck parked in front of the Home Depot with his mom and younger brothers while his dad went inside to buy some cardboard boxes and shovels on Sunday.
That's when he saw the skid loader, which he didn't think much of at first.
"I thought he was just plowing snow," Briseno Diaz, 21, said in a phone interview.
Then he saw the loader crash into a truck near the entrance of the store before it began ramming parked cars.
Briseno Diaz and his family then went into the front entrance of Home Depot, where he pulled out his phone and captured the skid loader as it hit a police cruiser.
"It was scary," he said. "... Like holy crap, this is happening. You don't expect it."
Briseno Diaz also said the man plowed through a fence and hit the front entrance of a liquor store near the Home Depot, as well as an ATM at a nearby bank.
His family's truck was not damaged during the rampage, an event he and his family didn't expect to witness going shopping on a Sunday afternoon.
"If the cops hadn't arrived, I thought he might have gone into the Home Depot," he said. "It's pretty shocking."
