A Crystal City man has been charged with felony assault for allegedly beating his 60-year-old father with an aluminum baseball bat in a domestic dispute in Festus, Police Chief Tim Lewis reports.
Earl Donnie James Jr., 38, was arrested on Oct. 14 and later charged with second-degree domestic assault, a class C felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
He was being held today (Oct. 18) on a $10,000 cash-only bond in the Jefferson County Jail, officials reported.
“At 12:20 a.m. Oct. 14, officers responded to a domestic dispute in the 500 block of South Adams Street – a family, physical disturbance between a father and son and ended up arresting the son,” Lewis said. “We’re not sure what started the fight, but the son took a baseball bat and started beating his father. He left and was caught just outside of the house.”
The victim told police his son “struck him multiple times with an aluminum baseball bat, after having been in a verbal argument,” according to the probable-cause statement in the case.
The father was taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City for treatment of soft tissue injuries, Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District administrator Curtis Stueve reported.