CANTON ‒ Bond has been set at $1 million for a man accused of shooting a patient care technician at Aultman Hospital.
Canton Municipal Court Magistrate Christy Pierson set the bond June 30 as defendant James Lee Fair appeared by video link from the Stark County Jail.
The 35-year-old man from southwest Canton is charged with three counts of felonious assault and a single count of robbery. He is accused of grabbing a security officer’s gun and shooting the 31-year-old woman in the abdomen.
Kristina Lockwood, chief assistant Canton prosecutor, asked for the $1 million bond.
“These are very serious allegations,” she said.
Lockwood said that in addition to taking the firearm from the security guard and seriously injuring the patient care technician, he shot at the guard whose gun he had taken.
Public defender Steven Reisch asked for a “reasonable bond.”
Fair’s next scheduled court appearance is a status conference on July 3.
The case against him is to be heard by a Stark County grand jury.
Police reports said the suspect was exhibiting signs of emotional distress at the time of the incident.
He had been brought to the hospital around noon June 27 as a patient, with staff placing him in a private room for observation. The man paced around the room in circles and repeatedly hit his head against the glass walls of the room, police said.
Hospital staff and two hospital security officers entered his room to stop him from harming himself.
The patient became combative and got into a struggle with the two security officers. He is accused of taking the gun of out of the holster of one of the officers and shooting the hospital’s patient care tech, the police report said.
The security officer whose gun was taken later told police that the patient “grabbed ahold of his gun and he (the security officer) began attempting to keep his firearm under control but was unable to do so before the firearm fired one round,” according to the police report.
Hospital staff were able to wrestle the gun away from the patient and restrain him.
The female employee was in stable condition after the incident that occurred shortly before 8:04 p.m., the hospital said.
She was quickly treated at the hospital, police said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information is available.
Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: $1 million bond set for man accused of shooting at Aultman Hospital
Reporting by Nancy Molnar, Canton Repository / The Repository
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