'Bizarre': Man knocks over mother's casket after trying to run over sister at funeral

On August 6, police responded to a report of a large family fight at the Rolling Hills Memorial Park cemetery in Richmond, California. The family drama nearly produced a second corpse.

Sgt. Aaron Pomeroy told SFGate that the conflict was centered on bad blood between a brother and sister. When the two began feuding at the funeral, the sister's boyfriend reportedly tried to defuse the situation, at which point "the brother began beating on the boyfriend."

In the resulting fracas, which reportedly involved up to 20 family members, one individual allegedly struck the suspect, the deceased woman's son, with a cane. Richmond Police said that the suspect, a 37-year-old from Bay Point, subsequently got into his vehicle with the intent to run down his sister.

After driving over several headstones, the suspect is said to have then struck a 33-year-old woman — not his sister — with the vehicle. In the process, he allegedly knocked over his mother's casket, destroyed vases, damaged grass, and broke a water main, thereby flooding the funeral director's grandmother's plot.

His victim was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The suspect was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism of a tomb. After having his wounds tended to, he was booked into the Richmond Police Department Jail.

The fight incurred approximately $20,000 in damage.

The manager of the cemetery, Kamilah Thompson, called it a "bizarre incident" and stressed to KNTV that the dead interred at Rolling Hills Memorial are "safe."