A 36-year-old Portland man is being held without bail after prosecutors say he beat another man bloody with his own cane near Southwest Broadway and Southwest 1st Avenue, all because the victim wouldn’t give him a cigarette. The attack was so violent that the cane shattered into several pieces.
According to KATU, court documents say the victim was sitting and smoking a cigarette on September 2 when Joshua Joseph Kelly approached and asked for a puff. The victim offered him a drag from his own cigarette, but that apparently wasn’t enough — police say Kelly knocked the cane from the victim’s hand, then picked it up and beat him over the head with it repeatedly. A woman nearby witnessed the attack, which left the victim with a bleeding head injury.
Kelly later admitted to hitting the man with the cane but claimed he was acting in self-defense, the outlet reports. He also made several statements to investigators that officers described as nonsensical. He was arraigned on September 4 on charges of assault, attempted assault, and unlawful use of a weapon, and is due back in court on September 15.
A History of Transit Confrontations
This is not Kelly’s first run-in with police on Portland’s transit system. He was arrested earlier this year in Multnomah County on harassment and disorderly conduct charges after being involved in at least two scuffles on a TriMet MAX platform near Northeast 82nd Avenue, per the same KATU account. Surveillance footage from that incident reportedly showed Kelly pushing another man who was pushing a person in a wheelchair, a shove that nearly sent the man into the street…