St. Cloud Man Faces Four Felonies for Assault Monday Evening

(KNSI) — A 36-year-old St. Cloud man has been charged with four felonies after allegedly hitting a woman with a shoe and pistol whipping his neighbor.

According to court documents filed in Stearns County, officers responded to a “gun complaint resulting in an injury” at an apartment on the 300 block of 4th Avenue South at around 7:30 Monday night. Investigators say Lawrence Duncan was accused of assaulting a woman there. Afterward, he went and found her father in a different apartment unit and hit him upside the head with a gun, “resulting in him discharging a bullet through his ear.”

Police say they found a bullet hole in the man’s closet door near the front of the unit, but he said it was just a graze wound and he didn’t need medical attention.

The man told investigators at about 7:00, Duncan came into his apartment without knocking, pulled out a gun, either punched him or shot him in the left side of his head, and then left. The man’s son and a friend were in the apartment at the time of the assault and said Duncan came barging in, and after the man asked what Duncan wanted, he said, “What do you mean what do I want” before pulling out a gun, chambering a round and then hitting him on the side of the head and “discharged a bullet.”

The man said he didn’t know why Duncan was so upset with him but explained Duncan had been abusive toward his daughter in the past, saying she had had bruises and cuts on her face and body.

Children at the scene said Duncan and the woman had been arguing, which they do a lot, and Duncan threw beer on the woman and one of the kids. One of the children said they saw Duncan hitting the woman “in a mean way.” The woman also allegedly told one of the kids Duncan hit her, and the child saw Duncan beat her with a shoe. He was also screaming, grunting, and banging on counters.

Duncan has a history of assault and domestic assault.

He has been charged with two counts of second degree assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of felony domestic assault.

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