Background: The Bingham County Courthouse in Blackfoot, Idaho (Google Maps). Inset: Thomas Andrew Larsen (Bingham County Jail).
An Idaho teenager is out on bond after police said he beat up a man who chased him down after narrowly avoiding a car crash.
Thomas Andrew Larsen, 19, posted $10,000 bond on April 27 after he was charged with aggravated battery. According to court documents obtained by local news outlet East Idaho News, Larsen was behind the wheel of a maroon car that nearly hit a woman”s car as she was backing out of a driveway in Blackfoot, Idaho, on April 25.
The woman’s father then hopped into his own truck and chased Larsen down to confront him.
According to the court documents, a Bingham County Sheriff’s deputy responded to the unnamed man’s home after being told that two men reportedly beat him up and left him on the street. Police said the man had a “severe nose bleed” and blood on his chest and knee. The man also had a “big scrape” on the back of his head and had lost consciousness.
The man told police that after Larsen almost ran into his daughter’s car, he got into his pickup truck and followed Larsen’s maroon car. He said Larsen reportedly brake-checked him and gave him the finger.
When the maroon car stopped, the man told police that two men came out of it. The three of them argued, and the man told Larsen and his passenger that he “about hit my daughter. Learn how to drive.” Then, the man said, “Next thing he knew, he was picking himself off of the ground.”
Police spoke to Larsen and his passenger at the scene. Larsen allegedly told police that he stopped suddenly when he saw the car backing out of the driveway, then drove around it and went on his way. Larsen saw the man following him and admitted to brake-checking him.
When Larsen shared his account of the physical altercation that culminated in the man ending up on the ground, the younger man said the angry father hit him in the face first. Larsen told police he retaliated by hitting the man in the face twice, causing him to fall. While the man was on the ground, Larsen allegedly admitted to hitting the man “three more times in the face.” Larsen then said the man got up and drove away.
Police observed a large amount of blood on the pavement, and Larsen confirmed that it belonged to the alleged victim. Larsen told police he acted in self-defense, saying, “After he went down, I was kind of just scared cause I didn’t know. To be honest, I have never been in a fight. This is my first fight, and he’s a 55-year-old man, whose gut, I mean, he’s way bigger than me.”
According to court documents, police told Larsen that if he continued to beat the man once he was on the ground, his self-defense claim would not hold. Larsen was then arrested and booked into the Bingham County Jail.
Police visited the man and his wife at the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a broken nose and a 9 mm brain bleed. When asked about Larsen’s claim that the man hit him first, the man said he did not recall hitting him, but he remembered “flipping” off his cowboy hat. The deputy who wrote the report said the man was transferred to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center after the first hospital had “a hard time keeping him stable.” His current condition is unknown.
Larsen was released from jail after posting bond. His next court date is scheduled for May 21.
