HARTFORD, Conn. — A navy veteran who rushed to assistance from Connecticut’s first Muslim state consultant when she was being attacked after a prayer service and subdued the suspect is looking for to have a misdemeanor assault cost erased.
Jason Spencer, 43, utilized Wednesday for the state’s accelerated rehabilitation program, which might end result within the cost being dismissed if he efficiently completes a interval of probation.
“I took an oath to defend this Structure, to defend the nation, to defend all of the residents,” Spencer instructed reporters after his look in Hartford Superior Court docket. “If I see somebody needing assist I’ve to intervene, and I really feel all residents ought to try this.”
Police, nevertheless, allege Spencer went too far when he kicked the suspect within the face after he stopped struggling.
State Rep. Maryam Khan, who was assaulted final June, joined Spencer and his lawyer outdoors the courthouse and criticized Spencer’s arrest.
“It’s unfair that somebody that assisted a lady being attacked is having to defend himself in our system,” she instructed reporters outdoors the courthouse. “Jason Spencer must be rewarded for his bravery, must be celebrated, uplifted and never criminalized.”
Khan, a Democrat who lives within the Hartford suburb of Windsor, has mentioned she and her household had been taking pictures outdoors of a Hartford enviornment when a person approached and mentioned he “supposed to have sexual relations” with one in all them, together with Khan’s 15-year-old daughter. Her household was marking Eid al-Adha, the top of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage by Muslims to Mecca.
Khan mentioned the person grabbed at her face and shirt, demanding a kiss, and later slapped her throughout the face and held her in a chokehold, giving her a concussion and injuring her proper arm and shoulder. She then fell and he ran. Spencer and one other man chased down and subdued the suspect, Andrey Desmond, police mentioned.
Desmond was charged with a number of crimes together with tried sexual assault, strangulation, assault and danger of damage to youngsters. He has pleaded not responsible. Court docket information present he has a historical past of psychological sickness, and a decide in December accepted his public defender’s request for a psychological well being analysis.
Spencer, of Coventry, is a former Army sergeant who served two excursions in Iraq, his lawyer, Aaron Romano, mentioned.
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