A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Schuylkill County man accused of breaking another man’s jaw with a punch outside a Tremont bar in May.
Donovan Reed, 24, of Tremont, is charged with felony aggravated assault, simple assault and harassment. The charges were filed Oct. 27 with Magisterial District Judge Christian Lengel of Tremont.
The assault happened around 2 a.m. May 10 on N. Pine St., just north of W. Main St., outside The Corner Bar, according to police.
State Police were called around 4:30 a.m. that morning, when a nurse at Geisinger St. Luke’s Hospital in West Brunswick Township reported that a man had come in with a broken jaw from a fight outside the bar.
The man told troopers he got to the bar around 10 p.m. May 9 and started talking with two men he didn’t know. He said they began talking “smack” to one another, and he told the two men, “You have a lot to learn.” He said one of them took offense to his comments.
He told police he left at closing time, which he believed was between 2 and 2:30 a.m., and was walking to his vehicle when he was punched in the left side of the face with a closed fist. After he fell to the ground, he said, the men said, “How did you like that, you good?” He told police he never had a chance to hit back.
He got up, drove to his home nearby and saw the injury to his jaw in the mirror, then drove himself to the hospital, police say. He suffered a fracture to the left side of his lower jaw and a fractured tooth.
He described the man who hit him as a white man around 24 years old, between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-11 with a slim, athletic build, wearing a Yankees hat, a short-sleeved shirt with a character on it and dark jeans. He said the man was with a friend who went by “Nick,” who had a similar build and a beard, and that he had exchanged Instagram accounts with that friend. He told police the man who hit him was a Tremont local.
The trooper who interviewed him at the hospital detected a strong odor of alcohol, and the man admitted to having at least three drinks at the bar, police say.
The bartender told police later that day that there were no altercations inside the bar and that she had not heard about anything happening outside after it closed around 2:30 a.m. She said she only remembered the man sitting with Reed, and that the two kept buying drinks for each other. She did not recall who Reed was with or what he was wearing.
Police say Reed was the only person seen talking with the man at the bar. Department records showed Reed has been arrested several times for assault, according to police.
Troopers interviewed Reed at his home on E. Main St. in Tremont shortly after midnight May 12. Reed told them he got to the bar around 10 p.m. with a friend and left when it closed around 2:30 a.m. He said he went out the back door and saw a “dude with a beard” lying on the ground, and that he and his friend tried to help the man up, but he did not want help.
Reed said he had never met the man before but knew he had been groping women in front of their husbands all night. He said he sat with the man throughout the night and that the two bought each other a few drinks.
Reed told troopers no one else was around outside when he saw the man on the ground, that he thought the man was just drunk and that he did not know he had been assaulted. He said he had nothing to do with it, and that about 12 people left the bar at closing.
Reed showed troopers his hands, and his right knuckles were swollen, police say. Reed said he broke his knuckles a few years ago, which is why they look that way. The trooper said Reed was wearing a blue Yankees hat and appeared extremely nervous and was shaking during the interview.
On Aug. 25, a State Police investigator showed the man a photo lineup at the State Police station in Schuylkill Haven, and he picked out Reed, police say.
No preliminary hearing had been scheduled as of Saturday.
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