A Boulder man called 911 on Tuesday evening to report that he’d been followed home by a pecan pie-wielding suspect who incited a brief food fight that quickly turned violent.

Naturally, police said, the man who was targeted — identified as Adam Raley, 35 — went over to the destroyed pie, picked up the remnants and returned fire.

Raley told police the incident began shortly after 7 p.m., when he was followed from Safeway, on 28th Street just south of Iris Avenue, to his home on the 3500 block of Arthur Court.

“Adam explained that he had pulled out of the Safeway lot … and drove west on Iris, and was in the wrong lane,” a police report reads. “He said he pulled into the adjacent lane and may have cut off a late-model Nissan Murano.”

In describing the events of his drive home, Raley admitted to police that he has a “tendency to drive aggressively.”

Upon return to Arthur Court, Raley told police, he was confronted by the alleged pie-thrower, 62-year-old Gary Strand, driving a 1990 Chevrolet Geo.

“Can I help you?” Raley said to Strand, according to police.

The police report details minimal verbal communication between the men thereafter, stating that Strand “threw something” and that Raley “saw what appeared to be the remnants of a pecan pie on the rear window and trunk.”

“Adam said he went over, picked up some of what was left of the pie and ‘threw it back at (Strand’s) car,'” the report adds.

The pie fight preceded a much more serious allegation, in which Strand “got back in his vehicle and ‘hit the pedal,’ driving his car at the victim,” according to police.

Raley said in his report to officers that it was “intense and scary” and that he “thought the guy was trying to run me over.” He said he braced himself against Strand’s vehicle to avoid being struck, and he was not injured.

Strand then went into the back seat of his vehicle, the police report said, to grab a “short baton of some kind,” which he is accused of using to break the tail light of Raley’s car.

Raley got Strand’s license plate number and called police, who located Strand on the 4700 block of Broadway. He was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing and criminal mischief.

In a conversation with police prior to his arrest, Strand said he had become upset seeing Raley speeding and “cutting off cars.” Strand told officers Raley had passed his car and others on the shoulder of the road. He added that Raley “flipped him off a couple of times.”

Strand confessed, police said, to throwing the pie.

Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness