Ventura County – In what must have felt like a scene right out of one of the current spate of big-box office movies featuring Marvel Comics villains, a man and woman, sitting in a parked car on a quiet street in a Camarillo residential neighborhood at 1:45 a.m. on May 4th, suddenly had their private moments violently and noisily interrupted as a sword smashed into their vehicle windshield.
The man wielding the ancient weapon, Michael Patrick Benson, a 51-year old resident of Camarillo, was apparently in full “attack” mode, smashing the sword through the windshield and then penetrating both the car’s passenger-side and driver-side windows. While Benson continued his armed assault in a sincere effort to inflict great bodily harm to the car’s occupants, Ventura County Sheriff Camarillo Station deputies were enroute to the scene pursuant to a 911 Emergency call.
According to VCSD spokesman Det. H. Macias, when deputies arrived on the scene, they observed the destruction to the vehicle and Benson nearby, “who had by now thrown the sword on the ground.” The ensuring investigation at the scene established the fact that Benson had acted alone, and had chosen his victims “at random.”
Benson was summarily taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail where he was booked on charges consistent with his actions: two counts of attempted murder and felony vandalism, with his bail set at $1,000,000.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
