Family bear-sprayed in argument over parking stall: Nanaimo RCMP

Police on Vancouver Island say a dispute between two drivers vying for a spot in a busy Walmart parking lot exploded in violenceover the long weekend, when one man allegedly attacked the other driver with bear spray, catching his four young children in the crossfire.

The man who got sprayedthen retaliated, wieldinga tire iron to smash a window of the other driver's vehicle, Nanaimo RCMPallegedWednesday.

The confrontation at Woodgrove Centre started around 12:45 p.m. PT on Monday when a man driving a what appeared to be a Hummer SUVcut offa family of sixabout to turn their truck towing a large boat into a free stall, police say.

"The two drivers, they get all heated, they jump out, they start yelling at each other and then the [SUV driver] goes back to his car andtook bear spray and hits [the other driver]in the face with it," Const. Gary O'Brien with Nanaimo RCMP told CBCNews on Wednesday.

The man's four kids, aged between one andsix, were also struck by the bear spray, though the man's wife wasnot, said O'Brien.

"To make it worse, thenthe [father] goes back to his car and pulls out a tire iron andstarts smashing at the guy's Hummer and thenthe Hummer takes off," he claimed.

The man and all four children were treated by paramedics on scene but did not need to go to the hospital, according to police.

Police are looking for the driver of the SUV, who they say fled south on Hwy 19A after the altercation. He is described as a whiteman in his sixties with grey hair who was wearing a green shirt at the time.

"He may have a totally different version and that's why we need to talk to him," said O'Brien, noting that it's unclearwhether charges will come from the incident without a way to track the SUV driverdown.

"This basically started off as a consensual fight,but then it got elevated very quickly with the bear spray, so we could be looking at assault with a weapon for that individual," he said.

O'Briensays "cooler heads" should have prevailed andimplored drivers to take responsibility for their actions.

"There's no reason why this situation got to where it did," he said. "If you're faced with something like that, just take a few moments, take a deep breath, collect your thoughts."