Ind. Woman Arrested After Assaulting EMTs

The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.

A Clark County woman is in custody following an arrest last Friday related to an alleged battery.

Kellie M. Cline, 42, faces preliminary charges of resisting law enforcement, battery with bodily waste, obstructing an emergency medical person, escape from detention, battery to a health care worker and domestic battery. Both child and adult protective services were notified after the incident.

According to police records, officers responded to a home in the 200 block of Apple Tree Lane just after 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21, on a report of battery.

On arrival, they located the alleged victim, an adult male, at a neighbor's house. He had multiple bloody skin abrasions and large knots on both of his arms, and his walking stick was smeared with blood.

When police asked the victim what happened, he said he had fallen outside while carrying firewood. Asked a second time, he said he fell in the house. "[The victim] was evasive and did not want to give a statement," police records show.

Cline told police the man had fallen in the yard carrying firewood but that she had not seen it happen. Both were intoxicated, according to the report.

Emergency personnel determined that the man had diminished mental capacity due to health issues and should be seen by a doctor due to injuries and other factors, but he became combative when they attempted to render him care.

As he was being secured to a stretcher, Cline allegedly began yelling at the EMTs, punching one in the back of the head. When being handcuffed by police, she spit in one officer's face and when she was put in the car, she was able to unbuckle her seatbelt and run through the woods before being apprehended at a neighbor's house.

A small child who had been in the home was taken by police to a relative's house. Formal charges had not been filed by press time. Cline has an initial hearing at 11:15 a.m. Friday in Clark County Circuit Court No. 1.

Her bond is currently set at $2,505 full cash.