A woman was arrested in Montana over the weekend after allegedly driving her vehicle at or through a religious group multiple times as they demonstrated on a sidewalk, police said.
Genevienne Rancuret, 55, was pulled over and detained after the Saturday incident in Billings in which she allegedly struck and injured a 45-year-old man in the group, with the organization identified by Billings Police spokesperson Lt. Matt Lennick as Israelis for Christ. Rancuret fled the area after striking the man, police said.
Lennick told the Associated Press he did not have sufficient information to provide a comment on what the possible motive may have been in the incident. The man who was hurt in the incident suffered minor injuries.
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“I just kind of saw this white Jeep fly by me and jump onto the sidewalk, straight at the group of people that were there,” witness Jamee Wagenmann told KTVQ. “The first thing that I thought was they lost control and they were in a wreck.”
Wagenmann said she realized that wasn’t the case when she saw the driver allegedly attempting to hit the group again “from behind, like trying to catch them not paying attention.”
“Screaming, even cars were honking. It was chaos,” Wagenmann added.
Hours after the alleged attack, Rancuret was arrested and taken to jail on charges of felony assault with a weapon—referring to her vehicle—felony criminal mischief, and driving under the influence, police said.
Authorities said in an update that the FBI is also reviewing the incident, possibly indicating that the federal agency is considering if the case may be a bias-motivated crime.
