CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A 17-year-old is facing a felonious assault charge after police say he held a knife to a 10-year-old boy’s neck and stabbed him at a local park Tuesday evening.
The incident unfolded at the shelter house at Poland Park shortly before 9 p.m. According to police reports, the younger boy had been playing with a squirt gun and sprayed the teenager. Officers say the teen got up, grabbed the child, forced him to the ground and held a black-bladed pocket knife to his neck. When the boy squirted him again, witnesses say the teen slammed him to the ground a second time.
The child’s mother intervened and pushed the teenager off her son. The boy sustained a laceration to the lower right jaw and was treated at the scene by EMS.
The teenager fled on foot to a nearby residence on Burbridge Avenue. Officers surrounded the home and he came out with his hands raised and was taken into custody without incident.
When questioned, the teen suspect told officers he had been whittling on a bench when the boy squirted him, and that when he grabbed the child they fell and he believed that was when the cut occurred, claiming it was an accident. Investigators said witness accounts were inconsistent with that version of events.
Officers recovered the knife — described as having a black handle and black blade — from a shoe box in the teen’s bedroom closet. It was photographed and entered into evidence.
A magistrate granted a detention request, and the 17-year-old suspect was transported to the Juvenile Detention Center on Cattail Road.