El Dorado man sentenced to 10 years prison for assault, battery charges
Lynn Jones, 37, of El Dorado was sentenced to 10 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections and five years suspended imposition of sentence in late July after pleading guilty to charges including second-degree battery, domestic battery and two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer.
Jones appeared last before Judge Robin Carroll on Tuesday, July 20, to accept a plea deal offered by 13th Judicial District prosecutors.
According to court records, Jones’ charges stem from an incident in March that began when three El Dorado Police Department officers responded to a call from a residence on East Burns Street.
One of the officers “observed two males fighting” and, while separating them, saw Jones run out of the
house.
A female relative of Jones then told officers that Jones had struck her in the face “multiple times” and was noted to have “blood coming from [her] right nostril.”
Officers found Jones in a yard on a nearby street. The probable cause affidavit states that Jones then picked up a piece of concrete and began running towards the patrol car.
The officers used pepper spray on Jones, who then “fell on the ground in a sitting position.”
According to court documents, Jones then bit one of the officers “on the right calf” while they attempted to handcuff him. The officer who was bitten then “struck Jones on the right side of the face with a closed fist in an attempt to get Jones to stop biting.”
Jones next grabbed the handcuffs with his one free hand and “refused to let go,” records say, causing officers to attempt to loosen his grip and eventually “deliver two strikes to his abdominal area,” which loosened his grip and allowed him to be placed in handcuffs, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Once in handcuffs, Jones reportedly resisted being placed into the patrol car using “his legs to push away from the vehicle” and climbing “up the side of the patrol unit.”
Officers then transported Jones to the hospital for treatment from the pepper spray; according to court documents, while in the hospital, he “slammed his head into a glass picture hanging on the wall causing the glass to shatter and his head to begin bleeding.”
He was then held down by officers in order to receive treatment from health care workers.
Jones pleaded guilty to all charges as part of the plea agreement and was sentenced to five years in the ADC for the charge of second-degree domestic battery; 10 years in the ADC for a charge of second-degree battery with a habitual offender enhancement; and suspended imposition of two five-year sentences for the charges of aggravated assault on a police officer.
Jones had, according to the plea agreement, four prior felonies. The sentences will run concurrently, resulting in Jones’ total sentence of 10 years in the ADC and five years suspended imposition of sentence.