WILLMAR -- A 29-year-old Willmar man pleaded guilty Friday to a second-degree assault charge for hitting another man in the head with a metal baseball bat Aug. 22 at Regency Estates West.
Jaime Turrubiates will be sentenced March 2. As part of a plea agreement reached in Kandiyohi County District Court, he will receive a "bottom of the box" sentence, or on the lower end of the state sentencing guidelines.
The charge was filed after Willmar police officers were called to the mobile home park around 1:50 a.m. Aug. 22 regarding a fight involving a group of men and women. Two men were fighting, wrestling and punching each other.
Officers were forced to spray mace in an effort to break the fight up. At that point, Turrubiates swung the bat, hitting the other man in the head. The man suffered a deep wound that required 13 stitches to close.
Turrubiates was taken into custody after an officer threatened to shoot him as he attempted to flee the scene.
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In an interview, Turrubiates said he was drinking with others and that people came looking for his girlfriend and sister-in-law, who were involved in a fight earlier that evening at the Double D Club in Willmar. He said one of the men fought with his brother. Turrubiates admitted hitting the man in the head with the bat.
The officers then went to Rice Memorial Hospital emergency room, where the injured man and a woman confirmed there was a fight at the club.
The stated another woman had pulled her hair and that a group of women fought until club security broke up the fight.
The woman said she and others then went to Regency West and that someone in a car that drove by their home said they had a gun.
The woman said she threw a rock at the car and that's when the fight began.
