The Des Moines road rage arrest that unfolded Friday afternoon lasted only seconds on camera, but the footage has circulated widely because of how close it came to something far worse. Officers arrived to find a man standing in the street with a handgun pointed toward a stopped sedan carrying two teenagers. Moments later he set the weapon down and put his hands on his head.

What happened before those seconds, however, is now a matter of sharp dispute.

The Call and the Confrontation

Police say the call came in around 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Dispatchers were told that following a collision in Des Moines, one of the drivers had drawn a handgun and aimed it at another motorist.

Authorities identified the man as 43-year-old Bradley Ratkovich.

According to investigators, the evidence they have gathered so far, including statements from bystanders and recorded video, indicates that Ratkovich exited his vehicle after the crash and pointed a Glock 9 mm at the sedan’s 18-year-old driver and his 16-year-old female passenger. Police also allege he threatened to fire.

What the Video Shows

The clip that spread online was posted by Joshua Barzon, who witnessed the encounter and recorded it from nearby.

In the footage, a man identified as Ratkovich appears to be standing in front of the occupied car with a handgun trained toward the people inside. Sirens grow louder in the background. A Des Moines police cruiser arrives and an officer steps out of the passenger side with his own weapon already drawn.

The officer’s first command is direct: put the gun down. Ratkovich lowers the handgun to the pavement. The officer continues issuing instructions, telling him to step back and place both hands on his head. A second officer exits the vehicle, and the two move in and take him into custody without any struggle.

Throughout, Barzon can be heard trying to defuse the situation from off camera, urging the man not to do it and telling him to relax, then later suggesting he return to his own vehicle.

Posting the video afterward, Barzon wrote that a road rage incident had nearly turned deadly in his neighborhood, noting that it happened at an intersection he passes on his own commute. He credited police with stepping in before the situation escalated and closed with a warning to others to be careful.

Charges and Court Schedule

Officers took Ratkovich to a local hospital for a medical evaluation before booking him into the Polk County Jail.

He faces five charges: two counts of assault while displaying a dangerous weapon, two counts of first-degree harassment, and one count of being a person ineligible to carry dangerous weapons. That final charge suggests investigators believe he was legally barred from possessing the firearm, though the basis for that determination has not been detailed publicly.

Court records show he entered a not guilty plea and waived his preliminary hearing. A judge set bond at $12,000 cash. He is due back in court on August 4, with arraignment scheduled for September 9.

The Defense Tells a Different Story

Ratkovich’s attorney, Kent Balduchi, rejects the account police have offered and says his client was protecting himself.

By Balduchi’s telling, the sequence began when Ratkovich was rear-ended while stopped at an intersection. Both Ratkovich and his son were injured in the impact. He told his son to call police, then got out to exchange information with the driver who had hit them.

That exchange, the attorney says, went badly. The other driver allegedly acknowledged having no insurance, became hostile, and then tried to drive away from the scene. As the car began moving toward him, Balduchi says, Ratkovich stepped backward, drew his firearm and ordered the driver to stop because he believed he was about to be struck by the vehicle.

The attorney emphasized that no shots were fired and characterized his client’s conduct as controlled rather than erratic, saying the weapon came out only after Ratkovich felt he was in danger. He said the defense intends to file a formal notice of self-defense.

Balduchi also raised the other driver’s record, saying the young man had been cited roughly three weeks earlier for allegedly operating a vehicle without a valid license and without liability insurance, and that there is no indication those matters had been resolved before Friday’s collision.

What Investigators Still Need

The case is not close to resolved. Police say the crash investigation remains open while they wait for traffic camera footage from the intersection.

That footage could matter a great deal. The central factual question separating the two accounts is whether the sedan was moving toward Ratkovich when he drew his weapon or whether he approached a stationary vehicle and aimed at its occupants. Bystander video captures the aftermath but not necessarily the moment the gun came out.

Iowa recognizes self-defense claims, but the justification generally requires a reasonable belief of imminent danger and a response proportionate to the threat. Whether pointing a firearm at a car containing two teenagers meets that standard is precisely the kind of question that traffic camera timestamps and angles tend to answer more reliably than memory does.

The separate charge of being ineligible to carry a dangerous weapon also operates independently of the self-defense question. Even a successful justification argument on the assault counts would not automatically resolve a prohibited-possession allegation.

A Familiar Kind of Escalation

Traffic disputes escalating into armed confrontations have become common enough that most drivers have encountered some version of the pattern. A minor collision produces an argument. The argument produces anger. Someone reaches for something.

Safety advocates generally offer the same guidance for the aftermath of any crash: stay in your vehicle if the other party seems agitated, call police rather than attempting to resolve insurance questions on the street, photograph the scene from where you are, and let officers handle the exchange of information if tension is rising.

None of that assigns fault in this case, which remains contested and headed for court. But the two teenagers in the sedan, the man on the pavement with his hands on his head, and the witness pleading with a stranger not to fire all ended up in that intersection over what began as a fender bender.