Stump charged with assault for jumping on man's chest

The Hill County Attorney’s Office filed a felony charge of aggravated assault against a man accused of jumping up and down on another man’s chest while shouting he was going to kill him.

Elias Stump of Rocky Boy, 35, was being held this morning on $50,000 bail in the Hill County Detention Center.

He was arrested Aug. 2 on suspicion of attempted deliberate homicide and held on $250,000 bond.

In its document requesting permission to charge Stump with aggravated assault, the Hill County Attorney’s office requested bond be set at $100,000.

Stump is scheduled to be arraigned, in which defendants usually enter their initial plea of guilty or not guilty, Aug. 20 at 10 a.m.

The maximum penalties Stump faces if convicted are 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

According to court documents, law enforcement responded to a call at 5:07 p.m. Aug. 1 to a location near the 22nd Avenue rail crossing.

Deputies were flagged down by a BNSF Railway employee and led to the victim of an assault.

The Havre man was lying on his back in the grass and witnesses told the deputies that a man who assaulted him had fled the scene.

A deputy noted that the man in the grass had injuries to his chest, with his ribs apparently broken and his chest caved in.

The man told the deputy that he didn’t know who had assaulted him but the assailant kicked him, jumped up in the air and landed on his knees on the victim’s chest and pressed against his neck with his knees.

A multi-agency search of the area was conducted, but no one was found

When interviewed at the hospital, the victim said he had been sitting watching trains go by and drinking vodka when a man approached him. They began sharing the vodka when the man “snapped,” the victim told the interviewing deputies, and called him “Custer” and accused the victim of killing his people.

He then attacked him, the victim said.

Railroad employees who were witnesses told the deputies that a tall, Native American man wearing camouflage shorts was jumping up and down in the grass.

One of the witnesses said he approached and saw the attacker jumping up in the air and landing on the victim’s chest with his knees, yelling, “I’m going to (expletive) kill you.”

The witnesses intervened and the assailant fled the scene, without being able to put his shoes on, they said.

Medical personnel at the hospital told the deputies that if the assault had continued, it could have killed him.

The deputies developed a potential suspect based on the descriptions given, and one of the witnesses identified Stump out of a photo lineup. The other witness said he did not get a clear look at the assailant and could not identify him.

Aug. 2, a deputy located Stump in Havre. He was wearing camouflage shorts with what appeared to be blood on them and his feet had cuts, blisters and scrapes consistent with his having run barefoot, the document said. He also had bruises on his shins and knees, it said.