Man charged with beating neighbor in head with baseball bat

A Havre man is facing felony charges stemming from reports he hit a neighbor in the head with a baseball bat.

Robert Adam Hutson, born in 1995, is charged with felony counts of assault with a weapon and aggravated burglary charges.

He was listed this morning on the Hill County Detention Center roster on a $15,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in District Court Monday at 11 a.m.

Court documents say a woman called 911 June 18 to report that Hutson hit her son in the head with a baseball bat. Her son was driven to Northern Montana Hospital.

In the emergency room, the alleged victim told officers Hutson came over to see if everything was OK when he and another man were arguing loudly in his home. The alleged victim told Hutson to leave about 10 times before he had to shove him out, documents say.

A short while later, the man said, he was in his kitchen when Hutson again came into his home. Hutson had a baseball bat and hit the man on the head with it, the man told officers. The man said he fell to the ground, and as Hutson continued to hit him, he grabbed the bat and eventually ran out of the residence.

The person whom the alleged victim was arguing with at the beginning called the alleged victim’s mother, and a man who came with her to the scene kicked Hutson out the apartment, admitting he punched Hutson while doing so, documents say.

When officers interviewed Hutson, he said he was in his home, half asleep, when the alleged victim came in. Since he didn’t know who the man was, he said he grabbed a baseball bat to defend himself, he told officers.

Hutson said doors lead from one residence to the other with a common area in between. He said he hit the man in the head in the common area and the man fell down the stairs. Only at that time did Hutson recognize the man he hit was a friend and his neighbor, documents say.

Hutson said he told the man he was sorry and explained he’d hit him because he was scared and acting in self-defense. Hutson told officers he was punched by a man who accompanied the alleged victim’s mom but he didn’t want to press charges.

Officers interviewed another witness who was with Hutson at the time of the incident who said the alleged victim entered Hutson’s apartment, the two started arguing and Hutson hit the man with a bat.

When the officer looked in the kitchen area where the witness and Hutson said the incident happened, he found no blood, the documents say.

Another witness said Hutson entered the alleged victim’s home. He echoed the alleged victim’s account of the incident, adding that Hutson probably hit the man in the head with a baseball bat about 10 times.

The investigating officer found blood in the alleged victim’s residence, on the door frame and “all over the kitchen floor,” documents say. The blood was consistent with the stories told by the alleged victim, the man with whom the alleged victim was at the time and the husband of the alleged victim’s mother.