CITIZEN STAFF REPORT

INEZ — A man’s Tuesday took a hard left into a jail cell Tuesday in Inez when he tried to stop law enforcement from interviewing an alleged domestic violence victim.

Chief Deputy Chris Kidd, accompanied by Martin County Sheriff John Kirk, rolled up on a welfare check just past noon on Route 3 to investigate a report of a domestic disturbance. The woman at the center of it all told Kidd that she feared for her life.

Enter James Newsome, 55, of Inez, who kept walking out onto the porch “extremely intoxicated,” trying to forcefully interfere with the interview. The suspect reportedly told the officers that he consumed a pint of Fireball, took Xanax and smoked meth.

Newsome took an aggressive, braced fighting stance and began making threats of “what he would do if we continued the investigation,” Kidd said

The showdown did not end well for him. When Kidd moved in for the arrest, Newsome’s resistance led to a takedown and some “empty-hand techniques” to subdue him.

Newsome is in the Big Sandy Regional Detention facing charges of obstructing government operations, public intoxication of a controlled substance excluding alcohol, menacing, resisting arrest, and terroristic threatening.