Man with bat beats Crime Stoppers chief
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Matthew Marx
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Central Ohio Crime Stoppers President Kevin Miles had to draw his handgun to stop a man from beating him with a baseball bat on Sunday, he said.
"Fortunately for him I didn’t have a bullet in the chamber," Miles said of his attacker, described only as a light-haired white man in his late 20s.
"I saw the guy right up close. … I know I should be able to tell more. Maybe if I settle down," he said last night.
Central Ohio Crime Stoppers President Kevin Miles said he was assaulted while walking his dog in Victorian Village.
Miles, who oversees the local nonprofit group that pays police informants, said he lay in an alley for 15 minutes after the attack, comforted by his 3-yearold Shar-Pei, Archie, who also was struck with the bat.
Miles said he eventually called a friend and went to Riverside Methodist Hospital, suffering severe bruises on his arm, head and leg.
"My arm is not broken, but it sure as heck feels like it," said Miles, 49.
He said he was walking Archie on Sunday morning in Victorian Village when a car pulled up to him in an alley.
"Before I knew it, he was out of the car and he was hitting me," Miles said.
He tried to block the bat with his arm, then was struck in the leg and went down. The attacker also hit the dog before Miles pointed the gun at him. The attacker said something to Miles and left, he said. He wasn’t robbed.
Miles has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. His dog is OK, he said.
Miles said he talked to a Crime Stoppers detective Sunday and a Columbus police officer yesterday.
Miles is locked in a legal dispute with Philadelphia philanthropist Joe Mammana over unpaid donor reward money for Crime Stoppers.
Miles said that a man with a similar description to his attacker approached Crime Stoppers attorney Kinsley Nyce over the weekend and told him that "Joe sent him."
Miles wouldn’t say if he believed there was any connection.
"I don’t want to jump to conclusions or make things worse," he said.
Calls to Nyce’s office and home weren’t returned last night.
Mammana said he doubts the attack occurred and suggested Miles made it up to embarrass him over the lawsuit.
"I have everybody in the country calling me about this. But if it was me who beat him or had him beat, he would still be in the hospital," Mammana said last night. "Maybe he fabricated the whole thing, or stole some Girl Scout cookies.
"I’ll post a $25 reward for the arrest but not the conviction. I’ll put the money up up front. … I wouldn’t wish any harm on Kevin Miles."
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The report can be found at;
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/11/21/20061121-D5-00.html
