TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee man was arrested after repeatedly assaulting a woman with a wooden axe handle until she was bleeding.
Clarence Art Ash, 45, left the victim bleeding from her face and head on Sept. 5, 2018, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The victim said she and her neighbor, Ash, went to buy marijuana earlier in the evening. Upon returning to the residence, she said she and Ash had an argument about money while they were standing in her driveway.
She said Ash swung at her and she was hit on her right cheek. Documents say the victim then fell to the ground and Ash continued hitting her. The victim said she ran toward her front porch, where Ash delivered a final strike to her right shoulder as she was opening her front door.
The Tallahassee Police Department investigator wrote that it was difficult to get more information from the victim because she was obviously in pain and Emergency Medical Services was providing her medical attention.
Witnesses told the investigator they heard doors slamming and screaming. According to court documents, one witness stated that Ash said, "If you're going to come at me like a man, I'm going to fight you like a man."
The witness saw Ash swing what appeared to be a "stick," and after four or five swings, the witness saw the victim get off the ground and run toward her residence while Ash continued swinging it at her. Another witness told investigators the victim was not fighting back and was unable to defend herself.
When officers spoke to Ash, he told them the victim had stepped close to him and threatened him but he could not say how he was threatened, the court document said. "If she wants to act like a man, I'm going to treat her like a man," Ash told an officer.
Ash said that after the victim "got into his face several times and began yelling" he punched her with his right fist. Checking Ash's fist, the officer wrote, the officer saw no injuries or blood from the victim's injuries.
Officers found the "stick" the witnesses saw near Ash's front porch. It was about a 3-foot long wooden axe handle, which the witnesses identified as the weapon that Ash used to strike the victim.
Ash was arrested on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and booked into the Leon County Detention Center on Thursday.
