Woman in viral scooter scuffle video denies being on methamphetamine

A woman who was caught on video screaming at her boyfriend and shoving him to the ground before backing over the motorized scooter he had been riding has pleaded not guilty to being under the influence of methamphetamine at the time.

Laura Cox, 47, was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in Huntington Beach on Sunday after a neighbor recorded the confrontation between her and her live-in boyfriend, which has since gone viral on YouTube (warning, vulgar language).

In the video, the man is seen sitting in his boxer shorts on the scooter behind Cox’s truck telling her to calm down. In an interview with KNBC-TV, the man said he refused to move from behind the truck because he didn’t want her driving under the influence. He declined to identify himself.

In the video Cox is seen walking to the rear of the truck and screaming in her boyfriend’s ear to move before furiously slapping and kicking the rear of the vehicle. When he doesn’t budge, Cox shoves him with her shoulder, tipping him and the scooter over.

As the man spills onto the pavement and starts to stand up, Cox is seen hustling back into the truck, starting the engine and backing it up, partially driving over the scooter.

“My scooter! My scooter!” the man screams.

Cox then appears to pull forward then back up again, narrowly missing her boyfriend.

The video is titled “Neighbors from hell” on YouTube.

“Usually, if I hear screaming, I know it’s her,” Sarah Oliver, the neighbor who posted the video, said in an interview with KNBC. “I felt bad because he gets taken advantage of and she does attack him a lot, you know, and he doesn’t deserve it.”

Despite the confrontation, the man told the station he didn’t want Cox prosecuted and said he wasn’t injured.

But an officer stopped Cox on the road not long after the incident, Orange County prosecutors said. She was booked on suspicion of DUI and on Tuesday was charged with being under the influence of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), domestic violence battery and vandalism.

Since she was previously convicted of DUI in 2013, she could face up to four years in jail if convicted of the current charges, prosecutors said.

Cox is due back in court Friday for a pretrial hearing. She is being held in lieu of $40,000 bail.

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