A man has been bound to the grand jury after he pulled a knife on deputies and had to be tased repeatedly before being placed in custody.
The man, Gregory Lynn Sowell, 36, waived his right to preliminary hearing before General Sessions Judge Bill Locke and was bound to the grand jury on two counts of felony assault and single counts of resisting arrest and evading arrest. He was also directed to serve the balance of his former sentence for violation of probation.
He was arrested after deputies arrived to find he had allegedly beaten his wife and threatened to slit her throat.
Deputies tried to arrest Sowell at his home on Viola Road but he tried to evade them by driving away as they were knocking on his door. Sowell was stopped and immediately fled from his vehicle, trying to outrun lawmen on foot.
“He got on the ground,” recalled sheriff’s deputy Joseph VanBommel. “Then he started complaining of his appendix hurting.”
The pain didn’t last long because as soon as Sgt. Billy Joe Crouch bent down to handcuff him, the suspect got up and ran back toward his house, eventually taking refuge inside.
“Mr. Sowell was holding the door shut,” VanBommel said, noting he was able to pry the door open a small amount. “I pried the door open enough to see him holding a knife in his hand.”
Crouch then tased the suspect through the small crack they had forced open in the door.
“He fell back and onto the knife,” VanBommel revealed, noting the suspect didn’t waste any time grabbing the knife beneath him. “He came up and had the knife and was attempting to move toward Sgt. Crouch when I tased him a second time.”
The deputy said the tasing had little effect but it did cause him to drop the knife. The suspect was tased a third time as deputies tried to handcuff him. Sowell was taken to River Park Hospital after the incident. Meanwhile, VanBommel suffered a cut and needed medical attention.