Must talk to this woman at any cost - Howard Van Sweringen, 41, took this mantra to the extreme and the cost was jail, and rightly so.


Van Sweringen began to follow a woman in his truck after she dropped her child off at school, already creepy but let us take it up a notch, mkay? He then rammed her vehicle causing the woman to momentarily lose control. He continued this for several miles.

True to Florida Friday he took it further and the situation got even scarier. The woman was quoted by The Ledger as saying "He gets out of his truck, walks up to my door and I roll down my window a bit, he threw his dog through the window." Afraid the miniature pinscher would bite, she threw the dog back to Van Sweringen.

"I was yelling at him," she said. "He gets back in his truck and starts hitting my truck from behind."

Worried that he would follow her home, she called the school, told the secretary about the situation, asked that the school resource officer help and started driving back to Lakeland High.

"I wasn't expecting anything like this ... I wasn't prepared," she said. "I didn't even think to call 911, I was so scared."