Here's the story. End of January at a party a girl comes up to me and says this kid Jeff is being really creepy. I look over and he's definitely hammered but I don't see him doing anything wrong. I ask a few people and there is a general dislike of him from girls and guys alike. So I walk up to him and say he has to leave. Nothing threatening just, "Hey bro, you're a little too drunk and you're rubbing a few people the wrong way. You need to leave for the night, just sleep it off and come back tomorrow." He says he just wants one more beer, blah, blah, blah. I explain to him, still calmly, that this is not negotiable, he needs to go. After about twenty minutes of this, and me stopping two different friends from throwing drunken hay makers, he agrees to leave.
He walks out our back door so I follow just to make sure he is in fact leaving. Well he gets to the end of the driveway and bolts into the house next door (friends live there to) as if I wouldn't see him. I walk in through their back door and he sees me down the hallway and turns and goes right back out the door. I follow and see him kneeling/hiding behind the railing at the bottom of the steps of the first house. I say, still calm for some reason, "Jeff, I see you. Just go home bro." I walk down the steps and he comes at me and throws a punch.
He missed, my left didn't. He fell to the ground and I pretty much had him in a full mount. I say again that he needs to just go home. He then proceeds to put his hands around my neck. So I hit him a few more times, stopping in between to tell him he should just go home. At this point I have hit him in total 5-7 times. I get frustrated and just get off him and tell him to leave. He crosses the street to "get his boys" as he put it. The only problem was that our neighbors across the street are old people, he doesn't know them. At this point we have called the police. He rooting around on their front porch but it's dark so we can't really see what he's doing.
He starts to come back across the street and I yell out, "Jeff, the cops are on the way and if you step back on our property you're going to get hit again." At this point he's coming at me with a good head of steam and just as I said the second his foot touched our lawn I threw a haymaker. He went stiff as a board and fell back onto the pavement unconscious.
At this point I walked back in the house and told the people watching to get me when the cops get there. I had a nasty gash across my knuckle that needed attention. Luckily one of the chicks that was there was a nurse.
Cops come, I tell him the same story I just wrote. He's conscious now and being an ass to the cops who are just trying to help him. Finally one of the cops restrains him. Then he turns his head, spits blood on another cop's shoe, looks at the cop, and says, "There's blood on your shoe.." Needless to say the cops then arrest him and toss him in the back of the car.
Since then I have seen the kid twice. Didn't speak to him but he was really bruised up and I heard that he received stitches in four places and then required surgery because the stitches got infected. I genuinely felt bad.
I hadn't heard anything else about it until today when my roommate wakes my hungover ass up with, "Steve, have you done anything illegal recently? You have a letter from the Gloucester county courts." I have another friend read it while I'm still in bed and he turns to me and says, "Dude, you're being charged with assault..."
"within the jurisdiction of this court, commit assault by purposely, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to (Jeff XXXXX) specifically by hitting him in the face. he was told to leave and did not. Mr. XXXXX does not remember what took place."
"you are hereby summoned to appear before this court to answer this complaint. if you fail to appear on the date and time stated, a warrant will be issued for your arrest."
So my question to those who may know more on the subject than I, is this serious? It says on the complaint that he doesn't remember what happened and that he was asked to leave and did not. So am I being charged because of hear say? And where should I go from here? I have friends saying lawyer up, just go to the court date, file a counter suit for assault and trespassing, or file a counter suit for what his face did to your hand.
What should I do? I do not want to waste my time and my money on this. It's the last semester of my Senior year at Rowan, I have very little of both. And by very little I mean it's stretched too thin already. So what do you guys think?
I changed his name BTW.
He walks out our back door so I follow just to make sure he is in fact leaving. Well he gets to the end of the driveway and bolts into the house next door (friends live there to) as if I wouldn't see him. I walk in through their back door and he sees me down the hallway and turns and goes right back out the door. I follow and see him kneeling/hiding behind the railing at the bottom of the steps of the first house. I say, still calm for some reason, "Jeff, I see you. Just go home bro." I walk down the steps and he comes at me and throws a punch.
He missed, my left didn't. He fell to the ground and I pretty much had him in a full mount. I say again that he needs to just go home. He then proceeds to put his hands around my neck. So I hit him a few more times, stopping in between to tell him he should just go home. At this point I have hit him in total 5-7 times. I get frustrated and just get off him and tell him to leave. He crosses the street to "get his boys" as he put it. The only problem was that our neighbors across the street are old people, he doesn't know them. At this point we have called the police. He rooting around on their front porch but it's dark so we can't really see what he's doing.
He starts to come back across the street and I yell out, "Jeff, the cops are on the way and if you step back on our property you're going to get hit again." At this point he's coming at me with a good head of steam and just as I said the second his foot touched our lawn I threw a haymaker. He went stiff as a board and fell back onto the pavement unconscious.
At this point I walked back in the house and told the people watching to get me when the cops get there. I had a nasty gash across my knuckle that needed attention. Luckily one of the chicks that was there was a nurse.
Cops come, I tell him the same story I just wrote. He's conscious now and being an ass to the cops who are just trying to help him. Finally one of the cops restrains him. Then he turns his head, spits blood on another cop's shoe, looks at the cop, and says, "There's blood on your shoe.." Needless to say the cops then arrest him and toss him in the back of the car.
Since then I have seen the kid twice. Didn't speak to him but he was really bruised up and I heard that he received stitches in four places and then required surgery because the stitches got infected. I genuinely felt bad.
I hadn't heard anything else about it until today when my roommate wakes my hungover ass up with, "Steve, have you done anything illegal recently? You have a letter from the Gloucester county courts." I have another friend read it while I'm still in bed and he turns to me and says, "Dude, you're being charged with assault..."
"within the jurisdiction of this court, commit assault by purposely, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to (Jeff XXXXX) specifically by hitting him in the face. he was told to leave and did not. Mr. XXXXX does not remember what took place."
"you are hereby summoned to appear before this court to answer this complaint. if you fail to appear on the date and time stated, a warrant will be issued for your arrest."
So my question to those who may know more on the subject than I, is this serious? It says on the complaint that he doesn't remember what happened and that he was asked to leave and did not. So am I being charged because of hear say? And where should I go from here? I have friends saying lawyer up, just go to the court date, file a counter suit for assault and trespassing, or file a counter suit for what his face did to your hand.
What should I do? I do not want to waste my time and my money on this. It's the last semester of my Senior year at Rowan, I have very little of both. And by very little I mean it's stretched too thin already. So what do you guys think?
I changed his name BTW.