Police arriving at the scene of a fight found a 37-year-old man covered in blood lying in the middle of Leonard Springs Road next to his 2008 Chevrolet Trail Blazer.
The vehicle’s windshield was freshly shattered, and the Lawrence County man had serious injuries to his face. A suspect was soon tracked down and arrested in the July 27 incident.
The victim said he was northbound on Leonard Springs Road in his SUV at 9:50 p.m. when he noticed the suspect walking toward him in the roadway. As he drove around the man, “he jumped on the hood of his vehicle, causing a dent and the windshield to shatter,” a Bloomington Police Department news release said.
The driver stopped, got out of his vehicle and yelled at the man, who police said responded by shoving and punching the driver in the face. The victim said the assailant then pinned him to the ground, still punching and strangling him.
The man said that when he picked his phone up from the roadway to call 911, his attacker “ripped it from his hands before striking him in the face with it. The victim was able to roll over onto his stomach and reported (the suspect) continued to punch and knee his head and upper body.”
A passerby intervened and called 911. The victim suffered broken facial bones, swelling and bruising that was so severe that his face was nearly unrecognizable, the BPD news release said.
As the man was being taken to IU Health Bloomington Hospital, a Monroe County Sheriff’s deputy found the suspect walking along the road just south of the incident, which happened near the intersection with Sims Lane.
He was booked into the Monroe County Jail on preliminary charges of aggravated battery, criminal confinement resulting in serious injury, robbery, strangulation, intimidation, interference with the reporting of a crime, criminal mischief and obstruction of traffic.
When police questioned the man, they discovered he had been in another physical altercation on West Heatherwood Drive just before that which sent someone to the hospital emergency room.
He was then charged with four more crimes: strangulation, two counts of domestic battery and interfering with the reporting of a crime in connection with that incident.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Fight in middle of Leonard Springs Road sends one man to hospital, another to jail
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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