Three males were charged after downtown video cameras reportedly showed a man being attacked in a parking lot area last Sunday (8/25). The police report was just released today (8/31).
Bowling Green Police responded at 2:39 a.m., to a reported fight behind a bar on the west side of the 100 block of North Main Street. Officers found a man helping an injured man walk and get into a vehicle in the city parking lot. The man being assisted reportedly had blood covering his neck, face, hands and shirt, from a wound to the back of his head.
Officers on the scene reported the suspects were fleeing the area on bicycles.
After talking with several witnesses, police charged a 17-year-old Bowling Green male with felonious assault and took him to the Wood County Juvenile Detention Center. Daniel Ruiz, 19, Bowling Green, was cited for rioting. And a warrant was issued for Conley Harley, 31, Defiance, for aggravated menacing, tampering with evidence, and rioting.
According to the police report, the three men found in the parking lot said they were walking in the 100 block of East Wooster Street, when a group of males on bicycles approached them. Words were exchanged, and the three men continued across Main Street to their car in the parking lot.
The three males charged in the incident were reportedly seen on downtown video as following the victim to the parking lot.
The two men with the victim identified the juvenile as the person who threw a rock at the victim’s head, and Ruiz as the man who twice threw his bicycle at the victim. The two men also said Harley pulled out a fishing hook knife during the altercation.
During interviews by police, the males charged in the incident denied any violence on their parts. However, while the males were being questioned, an officer went across the street to the police station to view downtown video camera footage.
The footage reportedly showed the initial confrontation, then the attack in the parking lot area. According to the report, the video also shows Harley standing in the alley next to the police station, watching police interview Ruiz and the juvenile involved on the other side of the street.
The video reportedly shows Harley throwing something into stones next to the outside stairs at the police station, then going across the street to talk with police. About an hour later, the footage reportedly showed Harley returning to the alley by the police station and picking up something that appeared to be a knife.
