A kid on a dirt bike. A Tuesday evening. A quiet residential street in Washington State. And then a silver sedan mounts the curb and comes barreling down the sidewalk right behind that child. The whole thing was caught on a bystander’s cellphone, and within days the video spread everywhere. The person behind the wheel? A 56-year-old woman named Wendy Clemente.
This wasn’t a fender bender. It wasn’t a momentary lapse or a driver who clipped a curb by accident. According to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, this was a chase. A deliberate one. On a sidewalk. With a child in front of the car.
The incident happened in what looks, from that video, like exactly the kind of neighborhood where kids should be able to ride their bikes without fearing for their lives. And if it weren’t for a fast-moving kid and a stroke of luck, this story might have had a completely different ending.
What Happened on South Fruitvale Road
On April 28, Wendy A. Clemente, 56, was caught on camera driving her silver Ford Focus when she turned onto the sidewalk where a child was riding their bike, according to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. The footage, captured by a witness on their cellphone, showed everything.
“The driver chased the juvenile on the sidewalk before reentering the roadway and leaving the area. Thankfully, the juvenile was not hit or injured,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
At one point before the chase, the child maneuvered away from the silver Ford Focus, and the driver is seen stopping to yell something out the car window. Then came the acceleration. The silver Ford Focus narrowly missed a fire hydrant and bushes as it traveled along the sidewalk before veering back onto the road.
Think about that for a second. A fire hydrant. Bushes. A child on a bike trying to outrun a car that has no business being on that sidewalk at all. Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies were called at approximately 6:05 p.m. on April 28 to the 7500 block of South Fruitvale Road for a report of a reckless and aggressive driver.
Who Is Wendy Clemente?
Wendy Clemente is a 56-year-old woman from the Spokane area whose name became widely known after the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office publicly identified her in connection with the April 28 incident. She was not a stranger to the neighborhood where the incident occurred, though her explanation for being there raised more questions than it answered.
She told deputies she “took her dog for a ride” and was “looking for other dogs to socialize with,” and said she noticed a dog in a fenced yard and stopped. She denied knowing anything about the incident on South Fruitvale Road.
That story, however, quickly started falling apart. The sheriff’s office alleged Clemente denied drinking alcohol or consuming any drugs, “but later changed her story and admitted to drinking alcohol.” She had driven a car onto a sidewalk toward a child and then told the people investigating it that she had not been drinking. That denial didn’t hold.
How Deputies Tracked Her Down
Here’s where this story takes a turn that sounds almost too strange to be real. After the sidewalk chase, Clemente drove away. Deputies were searching for her when, they received a call about a reported burglary at a home about a mile away.
Less than half an hour later, deputies got a call about an attempted burglary about a mile away. The same silver Ford Focus was found in the driveway of the home, as was 56-year-old Wendy Clemente, who was identified as the driver of the sedan who had chased the child earlier.
The homeowner, who wasn’t at home at the time, had been watching the whole thing unfold through a live security camera feed and alerted authorities. Think of it like your neighbor’s Ring camera catching a raccoon raiding the trash, except replace the raccoon with a person and the trash with someone else’s front door. Deputies showed up and found exactly what they were looking for, right there in the driveway.
It’s worth noting how quickly the pieces came together once law enforcement had both the cellphone video and the security camera alert working in tandem. The Ford Focus, a relatively distinctive silver sedan, was identifiable in the original footage, which gave deputies something concrete to look for while they were still canvassing the area. The attempted burglary call essentially handed them a location. In a different era, without any of that footage, Clemente may well have driven away and never been connected to what happened on South Fruitvale Road at all.
What Charges Does the Suspect Face?
The charges that followed were serious. Clemente was charged with 1st degree assault (attempted), DUI, and 1st degree criminal trespass, according to the sheriff’s office.
First degree assault, in Washington State, refers to intentional conduct that puts another person at serious risk of death or substantial bodily harm. Charging someone with attempted first degree assault for a driving incident is not routine. It reflects how seriously the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office viewed what was captured on that video.
When deputies attempted to arrest Clemente, she tried to kick a patrol deputy and was subsequently booked into the Spokane County Jail before being released on her own recognizance.
A Spokane County Superior Court commissioner ordered Clemente released on her own recognizance at her first appearance, meaning she was released without posting bond. That release, the day after the incident, drew attention in the comments and coverage that followed. Many people found it difficult to square the video evidence with a judge deciding she could simply walk out of a courthouse.
What Happened to the Child on the Bike?
The most important detail in all of this is also the simplest. “Thankfully, no one was injured during this extremely dangerous incident,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release. The child on the dirt bike got away. Their quick reaction, their speed on that bike, possibly even the fire hydrant and bushes that the Ford Focus had to dodge around, all of it added up to a kid who went home that evening unharmed.
But the psychological reality for that child, and for any parent who watched that video thinking about their own kids, is not nothing. A car came at a child on a public sidewalk. That child had to outrun it. The fact that no one ended up in a hospital is a relief, but it doesn’t make the incident itself any less serious.
Research on childhood trauma consistently shows that frightening experiences involving perceived life threat , even ones that end without physical injury , can produce lasting anxiety, hypervigilance, and changes in how a child relates to previously safe spaces. A neighborhood street or a sidewalk that once felt like a place to play can become something that needs to be assessed before stepping onto it. Whether that child received any support following the incident has not been reported publicly, but it’s a dimension of this story that the word “uninjured” doesn’t fully capture.
The witness on the scene who caught everything on camera did something genuinely useful. Without that footage, deputies would have had far less to work with. It also meant the public could see exactly what the sheriff’s office was describing, rather than taking anyone’s word for it.
The Story the Video Tells
There’s a particular kind of horror that comes from watching a car on a sidewalk. Roads are for cars. Sidewalks are the deal we make with pedestrians and cyclists that says: you’re safe over here. When something with four wheels and a 2,000-pound body breaks that line, it doesn’t just create danger. It breaks a basic social agreement that most of us don’t even think about until it’s violated.
The Spokane dangerous driving arrest in this case became national news quickly, and the reason isn’t hard to identify. It’s the combination of factors: an adult, allegedly impaired, in a car, chasing a child. On camera. In broad daylight. On a sidewalk where no car had any right to be.
On April 29, a judge ordered Clemente released on her own recognizance until her next court date, according to the sheriff’s office. Her case continues to move through the court system, and no attorney information was publicly available at the time of the initial reports.
The Spokane road rage incident also raised a broader question about what happens in the time between an arrest and a conviction, and whether pretrial release conditions adequately reflect the nature of the alleged conduct. That’s a system-level conversation, not one with a simple answer. But parents watching that video are asking it anyway.
What This Means for You
If you have kids who ride bikes, scooters, or anything else outside on sidewalks and residential streets, this story is worth talking to them about directly. Not to scare them, but because the conversation about what to do when something feels wrong or unsafe is worth having before a situation demands it. Kids who know to move away from an aggressive driver, to get to a neighbor’s house, to yell for help, or to keep a building or barrier between themselves and a threat are better equipped than kids who’ve never thought about it , and teaching them the help signals kids should know can make a real difference in a dangerous moment.
For Wendy Clemente, the charges include attempted first degree assault, DUI, and first degree criminal trespass. Those carry significant potential consequences in Washington State, and her case will play out in the courts. The child at the center of this went home safe. The case serves as a reminder that dashcam and cellphone footage increasingly plays a decisive role in how incidents like this are investigated and prosecuted. If you see something dangerous happening near children in your neighborhood, record it if you safely can. That witness’s phone may well have been the most important piece of evidence in this entire case.
A.I. Disclaimer: This article was created with AI assistance and edited by a human for accuracy and clarity.