Lee Cataluna: Is Prison Vigilante Justice The Best We Can Do With This Guy?
When it comes to a serial road-rager, the court system has repeatedly failed to protect the public.
By Lee Cataluna
By now, we’ve all seen the paparazzo picture of inmate Nathaniel Walter Radimak sitting in a wheelchair looking buss’ up and bloody after a beatdown at Hālawa Correctional Facility.
By now, we’ve heard of the various forms of mayhem Radimak is accused of inflicting upon citizens in Honolulu — a mom teaching her daughter how to parallel park, a woman who got video of him harassing her at a gym and taking a swing at her face.
We may have heard he has a lengthy criminal record and that he was sentenced to five years for a series of road rage attacks in Los Angeles, where he became known as the Tesla Road Rage Guy, but that — regrettably, inexplicably, maddeningly — he was released on parole after serving just 10 months and came bopping over to Honolulu to carry on his wayward ways.
In 2023, when he was charged with a slew of violent incidents in Los Angeles, including stopping his car on the freeway to jump out and smash other cars with a pipe, assaulting a valet, slashing tires in Hollywood and punching a woman in the face, the judge who ordered him held without bail looked over the many pages detailing his brushes with the law and said with astonishment, “The defendant’s criminal record goes back to 2004, almost 20 years.”
The judge actually missed a few of his earliest exploits.
Early Signs Of Trouble
Usually when you look up old newspaper clips about a person, there’s some mention of a tiny moment of childhood glory. Their name is listed in the aggregate scores of a middle school track meet, or they won a local poster contest, or performed in the school Christmas pageant.
There is none of that for Nathaniel Radimak. His name appears many times in newspaper archives, always in stories about some harm he perpetrated against unsuspecting victims.
The earliest mention is one of the most bizarre. In November 2003, when he was 17 years old, Radimak’s hometown newspaper, the Daily Sentinel in Rome, New York, reported that he was arrested for harassment, endangering the welfare of a child, and assault for throwing a crab apple at an 8-year-old girl so hard that it caused injury.
Later that year, the newspaper reported that 17-year-old Radimak was driving a car that he didn’t own and ran over a teenager’s foot.
In August 2004, Radimak was arrested for putting traffic cones across the Erie Boulevard East bridge early in the morning, causing vehicles to swerve around the cones. He was charged with disorderly conduct.
In May 2005 , Radimak, then 18, was arrested for third-degree menacing and “acting in a manner as to injure a child,” which was reduced to disorderly conduct. In that instance, police said Radimak shot a paint ball gun at two girls who were just walking down the street. He was granted a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay a fine of $95 and attend a “Work Offender Program” for 10 days.
Not sure if that helped the young offender get his mind right.
In 2011, the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York, ran a baby-faced mug shot of Radimak under the headline, “Have you seen this suspect?”
“Nate Radimak, who has a lengthy criminal record, is wanted on charges of felony third-degree robbery, sixth-degree conspiracy and second-degree harassment, police said. “If you see Radimak, do not attempt to apprehend him, police said.”
The pattern of behavior continued and escalated, and by 2023, Radimak had criminal cases in eight states.
Then came the caught-on-video Tesla road rage attacks on Los Angeles freeways with Radimak brandishing a pipe and acting completely unhinged.
At the hearing after his arrest in Los Angeles, Judge Amy Ashvanian ordered him held without bail, saying, “… if the defendant is released on any type of bail, there is going to be bodily harm, great bodily harm, and a threat to society and the public at large.”
That time, the judge was absolutely right.
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When he was released on parole in August 2024, some of his victims, who were represented by high-profile attorney Gloria Allred — known to take on feminist causes — held a press conference.
One of the women — almost all his victims through the years are women — had this to say about his early release from prison: “This was not just one isolated incident, which begs the question, is there hope to rehabilitate repeat offenders? I’d like to believe that there is hope, and that people are worthy of a second chance. I pray that Nathaniel Radimak’s brief time behind bars taught him a lesson.”
That clearly didn’t happen. Not sure if it ever will.
Next Up: Honolulu
Once paroled, Radimak left California and allegedly brought his unique brand of criminality to our beautiful island, which led to his arrest, his transfer to Hālawaa Correctional Facility, and the photo of Radimak in a wheelchair looking a cockeyed mess after being beaten by inmates inside Hālawa.
The photo quickly went viral on social media and the comments were universally, unabashedly gleeful. Many said that he got what he deserved, that it was about time that somebody taught this guy a lesson, and many expressed thanks to “the boyz” in Hālawa for “taking care” of a situation that law enforcement and the justice system across nine states couldn’t figure out how to handle.
OK, we all know we shouldn’t be cheering for prison-style vigilante justice, but nothing else has stopped this guy for more than 20 years. Every half-assed court-ordered program, gentle judge and understanding parole board did nothing. Radimak has been upping his wild game of brutally targeting innocent people like an apex predator loose on the streets.
Is this what we’ve come to? Is this the best option to keep our streets safe?
It would be so sad if the answer to both those questions is yes.
These Are Your Wildest Road Rage Stories
Streets and highways can certainly feel like the Wild West when you get behind the wheel
BY RYAN ERIK KING OCTOBER 2, 2024 8:00 AM EST
Chris Ryan/Getty Images
While the open roads offer near-limitless freedom, many drivers use the opportunity to dish out their rage on an unassuming populace. We asked our readers earlier this week for their wildest road rage stories, and they delivered. The responses feature guns being brandished, heated arguments and multiple high-speed chases. Without further ado, here are the most intense encountered submitted:
White Van Gunman
Rjluna2 / Wikimedia Commons
Second-hand story, but I know the victims and have no reason to doubt the veracity of this story.
My friend and his wife are both originally from Algeria. His wife usually wears a hijab in public, but otherwise, she dresses in typical American upper-middle-class garb, albeit modestly – always a dress or skirt with a hemline just below the knees.
One particular afternoon several years ago, my friend and his wife were shopping for furniture and had just walked out of a store in northern Atlanta.
As they pulled out of the parking lot they noticed a white van behind them. The van followed them to the next light then pulled up alongside on their right.
Just as the light turned green, my friend’s wife heard the van driver honk his horn and give a loud whistle. When she turned, they saw the driver of the van pointing a gun directly at her.
The driver of the van made a right turn and drove off. Fortunately, no shots were fired.
My friend called the police and sped home, but since they didn’t get a plate number or a description other than ‘white van’ there was little the police could do.
Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I
Pickup Truck Chase
Noah Wulf / Wikimedia Commons
It’s not something I was involved in but witnessed. I was pretty young, riding in the back seat of my parents’ car as we were going home from dinner. Divided highway, right after dusk, fairly heavy traffic. A hatchback blows by us, weaving through traffic. Then this bubba truck blows by us, clearly chasing the hatchback. He’s too big to keep weaving through this much traffic, so he cuts left and starts running down the median. At that moment, the hatchback weaves to the right and manages to go down an off-ramp at the last second and lose the truck. It was like something out of a movie.
Submitted by: Garland – Last Top Comment on Splinter
Furious Focus Drive
Cutlass / Wikimedia Commons
Driving home from my job in college, I saw some guy in my rear-view mirror weaving aggressively through traffic on the highway, driving like a complete douche. He passed me, and then took the exit ahead of me. We came to the end of the ramp, he turned right, I turned right behind him (both of us heading home.) He then went to turn left into his apartment complex.
As I passed him on the right, I gave a “friendly” tap tap of the horn. Like very brief. It was honestly more of a “hey, I saw you driving like a douche,” honk than an angry “GO FUCK YOURSELF” honk, if that makes sense.
Well, he didn’t find that very funny, and practically did a burnout after me. At the next light, where I was waiting to turn right, happened one of the wildest things I’d ever seen. I was in my ’98 Outback, and he came FLYING up behind me, and basically got so close behind me that I couldn’t see the entire hood of his car. It looked like his bumper should be inside of mine. At this point, I participated in some reciprocal “road rage” (I know, I’m not innocent), by SLOWLY creeping around the right turn on red (intersection was empty.) I’m doing this at 5 MPH and the guy is somehow managing to be so VIOLENT at the controls of his car that it’s rocking back and forth SIGNIFICANTLY and he keeps popping his clutch doing mini screeching launches that keep looking like he’s going to ram my car.
So at this point, I realize the guy has completely lost his shit. So I make a left turn into my apartment complex (stupid I know, but I was flustered at that point and had stupidly assumed he’d just continue on) and he followed me. Now I’m on the street leading to our bundle of buildings (a narrow road with no road markings), and he pulls alongside me, and starts swerving towards me over and over like he’s going to hit my car. I’m just looking at him dumbfounded at this point… and then he actually slams the right side of his Focus into the left side of my Outback.
So at this point, I just come to a stop, and he pulls in behind me. He gets out of his car all furious, and I (again stupidly as a skinny guy) get out of my car to look at the damage. He gets about halfway to my car before you can physically see him go from rage mode to oh fuck, what did I just do mode. He starts saying he’ll pay me for the damages. I tell him he can go fuck himself and I’m calling the cops.
Cop arrives, and the guy makes a BEELINE for the cop. So I just stand there patiently waiting while he spews some nonsense about how I rammed HIM, yadda yadda. The cop finally walks over to me and I say, “I dunno what he told you, but here’s what happened,” using pieces of car laying on the road and the damage to tell my story. Cop believes me (partly because apparently the other guy’s story changed like 16 times while he was telling it), but he says since there are no witnesses, nobody can get a ticket.
He winds up telling the other guy to play nice with me and my insurance “or else.” Long story short, damage to my Outback was a crumpled left front fender, scratched door, and broken side mirror, but because the car had like 270k miles on it, insurance actually totalled it out. So I bought it back, still got a check for $3100, brought it to my body shop/mechanic friend, handed him the entire $3k check and a long list of things I wanted him to do, and told him to get as far as he could with the $3k. Wound up getting the car back with not only that damage repaired, but a BUNCH of other stuff done, so despite the headache, it did wind up a net win for me, lol.
Submitted by: Stang70Fastback
Armed Retaliation In Parking Lot
gsagi/iStock by Getty Images
Had a guy pull a rifle/shotgun out of his trunk on the other side of an empty parking lot, and walk toward my car. He didn’t like that I had passed him a couple lights ago, so he proved his low IQ at the next light and used the right turn lane to pass a bunch of other cars, before pulling over and waiting for me to pass him again. Followed me into the empty parking lot, pulled a rifle or shotgun out, and looked to be loading it. Was far enough away I couldn’t be sure what kind of gun it was, but definitely didn’t want to wait to find out.
Submitted by: Artificial Stupidity
CrossCab Driver Throws Threats
Mr.choppers / Wikimedia Commons
I don’t normally answer these since they’re not really for staff, but hopefully, you this one hits enough key Jalop points to be worth it.
Rewind to me being maybe 22, stopping to get gas on my way to a good friend’s parents’ house. Oh hey! That’s a Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet!
Well, the CrossCab started to back up for some reason and didn’t appear to see me, so I honked at him to let him know I was there. The driver, a very Atlanta Suburbs-looking man probably in his late 40s gets out WITH HIS CHILD IN THE CAR to threaten me.
Now, I’m a hater, not a fighter. I find being punched to be quite unpleasant and only later learned some martial arts, boxing, and self-defense. And yet, despite being the second-closest to a real fight I’ve ever been in as an adult, all I could do was laugh at this grown-ass man trying to intimidate me in front of his kid for a mistake he made.
Because I was on a motorcycle wearing a full-face helmet, an armored jacket, and riding gloves.
What was Joey Whiteflight going to do to me? Punch me in my helmet? Start a fight at a gas station with a man who was literally armored? Obviously, since we were in the suburbs, so there was always the chance he’d go back into his car and get a gun. Maybe it was wrong for me to assume, but something told me he wasn’t hiding a Sig in the glovebox of a Murano CrossCab.
It didn’t take long for him to realize how stupid he was about to be and drive off, and that’s the story of how I almost got into a fight with a Nissan Murano CrossCab driver at the QT in Roswell, Georgia.
Submitted by: Collin Woodard
ATM Shouter Gets Shut Down
Mr.choppers / Wikimedia Commons
I have a similar story about a crazy driver at the ATM. I worked as a waiter for a long time, and often made large deposits on Sundays, as that was always a guaranteed off day as we were closed.
So, I was depositing something like a grand, and double-checking my count. it was mainly 20’s with a mixed hundred or two, so it’s not like I was trying to count out 1000 ones or 100 tens. When I began my transaction, there was nobody in line behind be. So, in the time it took me to insert my card, enter my pin, choose deposit, and begin counting, someone pulled in behind me. I guess my counting was not fast enough, so he decided to honk at me. I leaned out my window and shouted, “Don’t honk at me!” He apparently took this personally, and decided he was going to get out of his car and let me know that. He was yelling and gesticulating, but couldn’t quite squeeze through the gap between his mirror and the wall, shouting about how “he didn’t go and fight in Vietnam to be told what to do by some punk kid.” Now, at this point in the late 2000’s, I had already spent a few years living in the Middle East, so I got out of my car and calmly pointed to my Purple Heart license plate. He shut down real quick.
Submitted by: docmike1980
Angry Woman Rethinks Her Decision
Paul Frederickson / Wikimedia Commons/Getty Images
I came up to a 4-way stop which has 3 different roads coming into it, all at wonky angles. A car to my right and I both come to the sign at the same time so technically she probably should have had the right of way. But, I had a screaming newborn in the back seat, was operating on 2 hours of sleep, and knew that her road came in uphill at a weird angle, while I was going straight and downhill so I went. My bad, I know.
The lady (in an Audi Allroad) proceeded to tailgate me for a few miles on the windy road by my house and followed me all the way to the turn off. Not wanting her to follow me to my house, I pulled over just before our private road. She stopped behind me and came up screaming. She got to my window but when she saw my screaming newborn in the backseat of the Clubman she immediately stfu, turned around, and walked back to her car. I didn’t have to say a thing…
Submitted by: SantaCruzin6
Another Pickup Truck Chase
Noah Wulf / Wikimedia Commons
Living in a big city, you see some crazy crap.
The one stand out was as a kid, riding with my mom to school. We were on a two lane road going through a neighborhood, basically a street that connects neighborhoods with a lane markings and stop lights. We were stopped at one stoplight, behind a bunch of traffic. All of a sudden a Car comes flying up the wrong lane of traffic, but as there is cars coming the opposite direction, they veer off into the lawns of the homes that line the street. One second later a large crew cab truck comes up following the car and veers into the lawns also. As they progress through the lawns, their path is blocked by a driveway full of cars. The first car finds a gap in the traffic and crosses the road into the lawns on the otherside of the road, the truck does the same. They both end up taking a right at the light and didn’t see them again.
The speed limit was 30 mph in that section, we were all stopped. They had to have been doing 50mph+ and the ruts left in the yards were pretty noticeable. How the managed not to hit anyone was kind of amazing.
Submitted by: TheStone
Reckless Teen Actually Apologizes
Jason Lawrence / Wikimedia Commons
I’ve got a good one where I was both the instigator and 100% at fault. Let me explain…
For starters, I was 16 and had been driving for less than a year. I was a real shitass kid. Not only was I one of those little fucks that think they’re the paragon of wisdom and righteousness at 16, but I was also someone who thought I could outsmart the rules and do whatever I wanted. The inherent contradiction there is not lost on me.
So I’m driving my girlfriend to work in my mom’s Honda Odyssey. It’s a quick drive… just out of the neighborhood and two miles down the highway to one of those “just off the exit” fast food joints. We hit the highway and traffic immediately slams to a complete stop. We’re stuck in this for ten minutes and we’re barely halfway to our exit. My girlfriend calls her boss about being late. I’m in a shit mood- I should be home playing Call of Duty. I’m in the right lane and poke the car onto the shoulder enough so that my girlfriend can look ahead and see if she sees anything. Nothing.
We’re back in the slog for a few minutes when I notice a whole squad of Harley riders (jackets, patches, and everything) flying up the shoulder. Main traffic is going from fully stopped to a walking crawl, these guys are doing 40+ past everyone on the shoulder. I decide that’s pretty reckless and stupid of them and, as the aforementioned paragon of righteousness, figure I’ll teach them a lesson by drifting out into the shoulder again, as if we’re looking ahead for the issue. There’s a decent amount of tire squeal and drama from the pack of riders, and they come to a stop only about a car length behind me. From here, I had two options- I could give a little fake-apology wave and get out of their way, and I might get some middle fingers and a broken mirror… OR, I could flip them off and make it extremely obvious that what I just did was intentional.
The aforementioned paragon of wisdom decided to flip them off… So they regain themselves, rev on up, and completely surround me. Two bikes in front, one to my left, one behind, and the rest of the gang watching from the shoulder. I am being rapidly acquainted with the consequences of my actions and can do nothing but panic-lock all the doors, grip the steering wheel, and stare straight ahead, 100% deflated of all righteous bluster.
Traffic has started to move around us. The lead guy- 40’s or 50’s, exactly what you’d expect -comes up to the window and starts screaming at me to roll it down. I’m too scared to look at him, he’s too angry to back down. He escalates to pounding on the window hard enough to shake the car. He’s yanking on the door handles and screaming at me to “get out of the fucking car.”
My deer-in-the-headlights gaze into the distance is interrupted by an old panel van pulling into the open space now vacated by moving traffic just ahead of me and the bikers. This van is beautifully airbrushed with a Grateful Dead livery. As a little 16 year old Eminem Aficionado, I don’t know anything about Deadheads or their culture- all I’ve got is what’s written on the tin, so I’m now certain that someone even meaner is here, ready to take the side of the bikers; perhaps be a friendly witness to them in the ensuing assault. I watch this guy get out of the van- still 40’s but younger than the riders. Salt and pepper goatee. Runs his fingers through silver hair before donning a small black leather hat. Walks calm-as-can-be through the line of bikers and up to the lead guy pounding on my window. He puts a hand on the man’s shoulder and says “he’s just a kid, let me talk to him.” As if exercised by a Cleric’s touch, this biker goes from rip-roaring mad to completely sedate- he looks at this complete stranger and immediately backs down. Such was the energy of this guy.
Uncle Deadhead takes up the spot at the window and asks me quietly and calmly if I’d roll the window down a little bit to chat. I comply, transfixed.
He says, basically, “Hey bud… I saw what you did and I saw what they were doing. They are gonna get hurt riding like that, and I’ll talk to ’em, but it’s not your job to teach ’em a lesson, alright? You’re in an armored box, they’re exposed… it’s an easy choice for you to frighten them because you’re not in any danger… but their lives are on the line. It’s not up to you to decide what’s right or wrong out here. Now, do you understand what you did wrong?”
And for the first time in my life, I looked at an adult and said “Yes sir”
“Are you ever gonna do it again?” – “No sir.”
“Good, I’ll tell ’em you’re sorry and get them out of your way. Drive safe.”
And sure enough, the guy exchanged some words with the lead who did a little “round up lets go” motion, and they rode off.
I dropped off my girlfriend, who was not speaking to me, and when I hit the overpass on my way home, I saw the Grateful Dead van and a circle of bikes pow-wowed in the parking lot of the truck stop across the road. I’m feeling genuinely remorseful on a level I very much was not used to at this stage in my life, and decided- stupidly -to go and apologize in person. They clock me pulling up from all the way across the parking lot. Their conversation has ground to a halt. I park a safe but VERY awkward distance away and walk slowly over, trying very hard to make eye contact with anyone in the group, failing miserably. When I get to them, they’re silent. I swallow my pride and the knot in my throat and make the most difficult eye contact of my life with the lead guy. “I saw you all here, I wanted to stop and give you a proper apology. What I did was really stupid and I’m glad no one got hurt. I’m sorry.” The lead biker offers me a handshake and basically says “no one got hurt, so you got lucky”, Uncle Deadhead gives me a big smile, and I walk the painfully awkward distance back to my mom’s Odyssey and drive 10 minutes home in complete silence.
So anyways, the moral of the story is to educate your kids on the social contract of the road, how it’s never their job to enforce the rules of the road, and to always watch for bikers, especially where you don’t expect them.
Submitted by: Tycho13
Parking Brake Reality Check
Wikimedia Commons
The one I remember most was one where I nearly became the guilty party.
It’s a snowy, icy winter day in Portland, Maine and a guy cut me off from the right-hand lane to turn left. Didn’t even see me. Damn near hit the fool as he cut me off, then promptly pulled into a parking space on the sidestreet.
I’m royally pissed off. I pull in right behind him and yank the emergency brake before I’m going to jump out of the car and start yelling. Then I hear “ping-ping” as both of the parking brake cables going to the rear wheels snap and bounce off the bodypan.
At that moment, I realize all I’m doing is hurting myself with all this and accomplishing nothing in the total scheme of things. I sat in the car, calmed myself down and pulled my heart back down from my throat. I took the moment as God’s way of telling me I needed to chill the fuck out.
Submitted by: jrhmobile
Melee In Manhattan
Alexander Migl / Wikimedia Commons
Funniest road rage incident I’ve ever seen took place in Manhattan, on W 86th St, at the intersection of Central Park West. Two brand-new German sedans, a Mercedes S-class & a BMW 750, get in a minor spat about who is in which lane. The light is red, the drivers (both men in the 60s or so) are yelling at each other, and both have a younger man (who appears to be an adult son) in the passenger’s seat. The drivers get out of their cars and start swinging at each other in the middle of W 86th St. Their sons(?) are yelling at them and trying to break it up, and right when the drivers start actually punching each other, the light turns green, both combatants yell, ‘Fuck you!’, jump in their cars, flip the bird at each other, and drive off as their sons are screaming at them for being idiots.
Had a college roommate visiting NYC for the first time, and they really thought I set that up to give them something to remember.
Submitted by: Arolpin
Reckless Parents Throw Tantrum
Dogs.barking.duster.rolling / Wikimedia Commons
About a decade ago, my father was driving home from an Eastern Sunday church service in his 92 Volvo 240 turbo wagon (Incidentally, I wrote a few weeks ago about how my late father was an obsessive Saab collector, but he also had a soft spot for the 240 Volvo wagons as well).
He was waiting to make a left turn and as soon as the road was clear he started turning – but what he didn’t realize was that past the bend, out of his view, was a lady just FLYING down the road, at least 65-70 on a 30 mph road. She hit the back of the Volvo as he was turning, and luckily no cars flipped over, but both cars repeatedly spun around. Both parties were thankfully, no injuries. His car was destroyed, just bashed in the back, and of course her car took far less damage.
As my father was getting out of his car to check on them, especially because he saw there was a GODDAMN THREE YEAR OLD in a car seat…the mother/driver of the car immediately gets out and starts cursing and yelling at him about how it was HIS fault. Despite the fact that he had been doing everything properly and she was going over TWICE the speed limit.
And then she starting throwing stuff him, just literally anything she could find. She took off her shoes and threw it at him, then random pieces of trash in her car, then sticks she was picking up off the side of the road.
As my dad was unsuccessfully trying to get this lady to calm the hell down, he mentioned that he was going to file a police report… and then she just bolted. Immediately got her in car and drove away – she didn’t grab her shoes, just left them on the middle of the road. And needless to say, my father wasn’t able to get any contact information from her – though from what I understand, she was eventually charged with leaving the scene of an accident.
Damn, I loved that car.
Read More: https://www.jalopnik.com/these-are-your-wildest-road-rage-stories-1851662731/
