A man struck another man in the head with a pistol and threatened to shoot a woman in another vehicle outside his Austin home, according to the complaint.
Darrell Lance Abbott Hatfield, 20, faces charges of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and carrying a pistol without a permit (first offense), according to a complaint filed October 22 in Mower County District Court.
According to the complaint, Austin police were sent to a firearms complaint at about 8:50 p.m. on October 20. Officers found the victim, an adult man, sitting in the driver’s seat of a red Chevrolet Camaro. He told them Hatfield had hit him in the head with a steel, black pistol about three times. Officers saw a few minor cuts near his earlobe and jaw and he declined medical attention.
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The man said he and a woman in his car had gone to Hatfield’s home so she could talk with another man there and that he had asked another person to meet them in a separate vehicle. When they arrived, he said, the other man began yelling at the woman and hitting the Camaro and Hatfield reached into the car and struck him with the pistol.
The driver said Hatfield then hit the second vehicle with the gun. Because a pregnant woman was in that vehicle’s passenger seat, the driver of the Camaro got out and confronted Hatfield, who pointed the handgun at her window and threatened to shoot her, saying he “doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter,” according to the complaint. The driver said he pushed Hatfield’s gun hand away and waved the other vehicle off.
A woman who was in the Camaro told officers Hatfield hit the driver twice with a black pistol, said he would shoot them and, she thought, fired the gun into the air four times. The driver said he did not see it fired and did not believe it was. Officers searched the area and found no spent casings.
Officers set up a perimeter around Hatfield’s home and tried to reach him by phone. He walked out the front door and was taken into custody. After a Miranda warning, the complaint says, he told officers the gun was upstairs in a closet and officers found a Glock with a magazine holding 10 rounds there.
Hatfield told officers he had the gun in his waistband when the vehicles pulled up, that he saw what looked like an AR-style rifle in the black car and pulled his gun to tell the people not to do it. He denied hitting anyone with the gun, saying he struck the man with his hands after the man tried to swing at him, according to the complaint. A woman at the home told officers she saw him with what she called a BB gun and heard him say, “I’ll shoot you.”
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