A man will serve six months in jail for assaulting two police officers in separate run-ins with the law less than a week apart.
The defendant, Gregory Thomas Bell, 27, was ordered by General Sessions Judge Bill Locke to serve six months of an 11-month, 29-day sentence for two counts of assault, resisting arrest and shoplifting. His jail time will be served in addition to time he owes for violation of probation.
His sentence comes firstly for his assault on McMinnville Police Sgt. Lisa Norris when she found him trespassing in an empty house on Peers Street.
Bell and a friend were in the house for unknown reasons. Sgt. Norris ordered the door to be opened. Once it was, Bell reportedly began arguing with the officer and refused to identify himself.
“At that point I took him by the wrist to put his hands on the wall,” Norris recalled. “He was pulling away and pushing me, trying to move toward the back door.”
Norris said that during the struggle Bell was trying to get his friend, Travis Myers, to help jump the officer and to help him fight her. His friend refused to help.
“He (Bell) fought me all the way to the door and off the back deck, at which point he managed to get out of my grip,” Norris said, noting she then grabbed his backpack. “He slipped out of it and ran from the scene.”
Bell was identified and later arrested on the charges. Police have not revealed what the men were doing in the vacant house.
Less than a week later, police officer Justin Cobble approached Bell inside Hardee’s to question him about a stolen bicycle. Bell lied about his identity since he was wanted on outstanding warrants, including the attack on Norris five days before.
During the talk, Cobble asked to search the suspect and found drug paraphernalia on him. Officers were about to take him into custody when he became violent and started fighting them. Police ended up having to use a taser on the suspect. Officer Cobble suffered a laceration to his left hand during the fight.