A man was sent to the hospital with a brain bleed after a Schuylkill County man beat him with a jack handle and choked him in Saint Clair early Sunday, police say.
The man was first taken to Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville as a trauma patient, then transferred to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest because of the brain bleed, according to police.
Johnathan Davis, 27, of Saint Clair, is charged by Saint Clair Police with strangulation, two counts of aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person, two counts of simple assault, disorderly conduct, harassment, and public drunkenness.
Police were called shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday to the rear of Davis’s home in the 200 block of S. Second St. for a report of an unknown person down.
The officer who responded found a man lying in the roadway, trying to get up. He was missing a shoe, was covered in dust and debris, and had multiple bruises and cuts on his face, police say. His left eye socket was badly swollen, and when he partially opened the eye, the eyeball appeared disfigured and bloody.
Davis was kneeling over him.
The injured man repeatedly told the officer he did not know what happened and appeared extremely disoriented. He did not seem to realize he had been lying in the street, according to police.
Davis told the officer the two were very good friends, that the man had assaulted him, and that he was trying to get him into the garage so he could get him medical help. Police say Davis downplayed what happened, asked whether the incident would be put on record, and made a remark about the man not having good insurance.
While they talked, a neighbor flagged down the officer and reported seeing Davis hit the man with a pipe and kick him in the head. The officer saw a pipe inside the open garage and detained Davis.
The neighbor told police he woke up to shouting and looked out his window to see Davis hitting the man and yelling, “Get out of my garage.” The neighbor yelled at Davis from the window. Davis then came back outside carrying a pipe and hit the man in the head at least twice, the neighbor said. When the neighbor shouted that he was calling 9-1-1, Davis dropped the pipe.
Davis left the man lying in the roadway and closed the garage door, the neighbor told police. When the neighbor got dressed and went outside, he saw Davis kicking the man several times, including in the head.
The neighbor went back inside for his cellphone. When he returned, Davis was holding a piece of wood. The neighbor heard a sound he believed may have been Davis hitting the man with it but could not confirm it, police say.
Davis then tried to lift the man off the ground, but the man kept falling, and the neighbor told him to leave the man where he was. Davis then tried to drag him back into the garage, but the neighbor had already called 9-1-1.
Inside the garage, police found a black jack handle and what appeared to be a wooden 2×4, and seized both as evidence. The officer also saw numerous alcoholic beverage containers, gouges in the stone floor consistent with something being dragged across it, drops of what appeared to be blood, and a dried blood smear on the fender of a silver Saturn parked inside.
Back at the police station, Davis told police he had invited the man, a coworker, to his home, and that it had gotten late and he wanted the man to leave the garage and go home. Davis said the man grabbed his sweatshirt and pulled down on it, choking him. The officer saw no injuries on Davis’s neck, only dirt lines.
Davis said he kicked the man to the ground and restrained him with a forearm across his neck while the man lay on his back, a technique he said he learned taking martial arts. Asked whether the man could breathe or speak, Davis said he could speak intermittently and was not fully aware, and blamed that on the man being intoxicated.
Davis said the man then began choking him again, though he could not recall how. Asked how a man pinned to the ground could choke him, Davis said the man had “flipped the table” and gotten on top of him.
Davis admitted getting a jack handle and hitting the man with it, police say. He reportedly said he didn’t want to hurt [victim’s name] but wanted to “get the point across.”
He told police he eventually threw the man off him and dragged him out of the garage into the street. When the man tried to fight him again, Davis said, he kicked him in the head, and when the man got up and tried to choke him again, Davis hit him.
Davis acknowledged having anger issues, according to police. He said he later tried to talk to the man and lift him up, and when the man would not get up, he put a traffic cone in the roadway. He told police that when his neighbor confronted him, he said, “That’s fine, I’m trying to help my buddy out,” and then, “I generally don’t care.”
Asked how the man’s head was positioned when he kicked him, Davis said the man was lying on his back, and demonstrated that he kicked him near the eye, police say. He later said he was unsure how the man was hurt, adding, “If I did hit [victim] in the head, it would have happened with my hand.” Davis repeatedly said he did not remember much.
According to police, surveillance footage clips show Davis taking the man to the ground and pinning him there by the throat, and holding him down by the throat during a struggle beside a vehicle. In another clip, Davis pins the man against a vehicle and appears to press his thumb into his throat. Another shows Davis putting his knee on the man’s stomach to keep holding him down as he gets up.
In one clip, Davis raises the jack handle over his head and swings it down hard as the man shouts and pleads, “What am I doing?” In another, Davis hits the man with a closed fist about five times, some of the blows aimed toward the back of his head, then wraps an arm around his neck as he goes down.
Another clip shows Davis getting the man into a seated position and slapping him in what appears to be an attempt to wake him, and the man becoming responsive as Davis talks to him, police say.
Other clips show the man on all fours, appearing lethargic and barely able to crawl, while Davis blows his nose in his direction, then bends down and tells him to breathe as the man cries and pleads. In another, Davis strikes the man in the face with an open palm as he tries to get up, and the man tries again with his hands raised and palms open.
In another, Davis holds the jack handle and says, “Get on your (bleeping) feet,” then raises it over his head as if to strike while the man, on his knees with his hands in the air, asks, “Why?” Another shows Davis swinging the jack handle down out of the camera’s view as the man shouts, then dragging him into view as the man says, “Ow.” Davis then uses the jack handle to shove the man toward the garage exit, knocking him down, according to police.
The last clip shows the man lying motionless in the roadway outside the garage for about 20 seconds.
The neighbor also gave police video from his home showing Davis pinning the man in the roadway, then rolling off him and standing up.
Davis admitted being extremely intoxicated, police say.
Davis is being held on $200,000 bail at Schuylkill County Prison. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 24 before Magisterial District Judge Edward Lewis in Port Carbon.
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