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FF man charged for alleged knife assault
Published 10:52am Friday, August 10, 2012A Fergus Falls man who allegedly brandished a knife at another man in the early morning hours of Aug. 4 was charged Wednesday with second degree assault.
The court documents of Ramsey Louis Kettle, 21, were accompanied by a bizarre statement of probable cause. In it, Fergus Falls police report that Kettle was found with stab wounds of an unknown origin not long after he tried to stab a man at an apartment on the 200 block of North Cascade Street.
According to court records, a man came to the apartment around 1 a.m. to visit some friends. Kettle was there at the time and allegedly began punching the man in the face and chest until the other people at the apartment were able to pull Kettle away.
Kettle (who witnesses said may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol) allegedly then pulled out a knife and made a comment about the possibility of being “snitched on” before leaving the apartment. He allegedly came back 10 to 15 minutes later with blood on his person and stated he was going to prison that night before pulling the knife again and coming after the man who had stopped by.
The man ran to the bathroom and held the door closed, but Kettle allegedly tried to stab the knife through the door multiple times (he was unsuccessful in cutting the man).
At some point after the assault, Kettle left again. Around 3:30 a.m. the same day, Lake Region Hospital alerted the police to a man who had been hospitalized with stab wounds. Police (who would not hear of Kettle’s assault of the other man until it was reported around 6 p.m.) responded to the hospital and found Kettle at the ER. Kettle did not tell police how he had been wounded, and officers followed a blood trail from the hospital but lost it around the corner of Lincoln and Friberg avenues.
In the past year and a half, Kettle has been charged six times with crimes in Otter Tail and Becker counties. Besides the most recent charge and a stay of adjudication for terroristic threats, all of the charges have been for misdemeanors.
