By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A convicted sex offender on probation for indecent acts to a child in Perkins has been charged with attacking a police officer in the Stillwater Medical Center emergency room where he was screaming that he was the son of Elvis Presley, according to an affidavit.
Due to his criminal record, Jonathon Lee Weems, 23, of Morrison, could be given a prison term of four years to life if convicted of assault and battery on Stillwater Police Officer Chris Howell by engaging him in a headlock and hitting him.
“Staff at the ER stated that Jonathon Weems did not know he was being placed at the Pryor Grand Lakes Mental Health Facility,” the officer wrote in an affidavit.
The Stillwater police officer had been sent to the SMC ER at 9:16 pm on April 26 to transport Weems, who was described as uncooperative, to Pryor, the affidavit said.
“As Sgt. Gripe and I were in the doorway of room 4, Weems began to become agitated and say that he was leaving. I informed him that he needed to have a seat and he could not leave,” the officer wrote in his affidavit.
“Weems would sit down on the bed, then stand and take a fighting stance with the fists balled. I informed Weems that this was not a fight he wanted and he needed to sit down. Weems again returned to the bed, then began to scream obscenities,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
“Weems would attempt to leave; either Sgt. Gripe or I would tell him to sit down and he would take a fighting stance, then would return to the bed. Weems did this multiple times,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
“Weems then stood up and asked if we were going to move or if he was going to have to move us. At this point, Weems took another fighting stance and advanced on me.
“I used my right hand and contacted Weems in the chest. I drove him back to the bed and fell on top of him.
“During this, the top of Weems’ head made contact with my left cheek, causing a small laceration. As I was on top of Weems, he began to try to get me in a headlock,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
“As Weems was doing this, I deployed my Taser…During the cycle, I was able to get my head free from Weems and transition to a cartridge on drive stun to spread the probe deployment area,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
After a initial contact deployment and then a drive stun, “Weems was pulled onto the floor and stabilized. Weems continued to fight, so I delivered an additional cartridge on drive stun in the area of his right shoulder… Weems received a total of roughly 10-10.5 seconds of exposure before we were able to gain control of Weems,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
Weems, who has been scheduled to be arraigned on the felony charge on June 3, had been convicted in 2017 of indecent acts to a child under 16 in Perkins in 2015, for which he was given one year in jail followed by nine years of probation. But last year, Weems was found in violation of his probation and given a one-year jail term followed by an additional three years of probation, court records show.
Weems had also previously been convicted of cruelty to animals in Stillwater in 2017, for which he was given a concurrent nine-month jail term. Weems had also been convicted in January of 2019 of violating the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act in 2018 in Payne County, for which he was given a one-year jail term with credit for the time he had already served.
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