A Newton man was arraigned Friday after prosecutors said he was caught on camera brandishing a machete and slashing a vehicle during a road rage incident on Route 1 in Dedham. Mussa Mohamed, 51, is accused of turning a late-afternoon traffic dispute into a violent confrontation that ended with an arrest at his home the same day.

Police were called to 983 Providence Highway at about 1:41 p.m. Thursday for a reported disturbance involving a person with a machete chasing another driver. By the time the case reached court Friday, prosecutors said Mohamed had been seen on video chasing the victim around a vehicle and using the blade to chop the hood. The victim was identified in court as a corrections officer.

That sequence is what makes the case move so fast. Police said Mohamed fled after the incident, but members of the Newton Police Department and Massachusetts State Police later used his license plate to find him at his residence in Newton. He was charged with assault and battery, assault by means of a dangerous weapon, vandalizing property of another and disorderly conduct.

Prosecutor Adam Stewart told the court that Mohamed chased the victim around a vehicle and, while holding the machete, struck the car. The victim told officers that Mohamed also threw a water bottle at the vehicle and spit on him through the open window. A witness stepped in during the confrontation, which police said spilled out from the roadway into a driveway.

Defense attorney Ming Ming Feng asked that Mohamed be held in Suffolk County instead of Norfolk County, saying the named victim is an employee at the Dedham House of Corrections. Feng made the request as the case was being heard Friday, when Mohamed appeared for arraignment on the four charges.

Mohamed also has several open cases out of Newton District Court, a detail that may hang over the new case as it moves forward. For now, the unanswered question is not how police found him — they used the license plate — but what set off the confrontation on Route 1 in the first place, a point that has not been explained in court.