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CommentsOne man grabbed her phone before she could call 911, breaking her hand in front of her husband and grandchildren as he screamed at the family for driving too slowly.
The other ripped the license plate off his own car in an apparent attempt to conceal his and the other attacker’s identities after cutting short the family’s leisurely drive to look at neighborhood Halloween decorations.
As her husband sat in their car, unable to leave his oxygen supply because of medical problems, Deborah Logsdon asked a neighbor to call police. The assailants, she said, were furious at her for her unhurried pace.
The family’s story is detailed in court documents prepared by Spokane detectives, who arrested two brothers on charges of assault and robbery last week in connection with the attack.
Yakov A. Topik, 25, and Sergey A. Topik, 21, appeared Monday in Spokane County Superior Court on four additional counts of unlawful imprisonment for allegedly refusing to let the family drive away.
Both men remain in Spokane County Jail.
The brothers were taken into custody Nov. 11, one week after a Spokane police detective identified them as suspects in the road rage incident on East Bridgeport Avenue and North Ralph Street in Spokane.
Logsdon, who required surgery for her broken hand, said she twice told the men to leave after they blocked her car, according to the affidavit.
Yakov Topik demanded an apology for her slow pace, then grabbed her phone as she tried to call 911, police said. The struggle broke Logsdon’s hand, and Topik kept her cell phone and ran away, police said. A neighbor called police.
Logsdon told detectives Topik’s younger brother drove away after tearing off their car’s front license plate and bending the back plate to obscure the numbers. But Logsdon and her husband, Ray Logsdon, gave police a plate number close enough to help identify the Topiks as suspects.
Bail for Yakov Topik was set Monday at $35,000. Sergey Topik’s bail was set at $10,000. He’s also charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle in connection with an unrelated arrest in January.
Each must post an additional $50,000 on the assault and robbery charges to be released.
Copyright (c) 2009, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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