Attacker in Macon socket wrench beating admits ‘poor judgment’

A Macon auto mechanic says he resorted to street justice, smacking another man in the head with a socket wrench last year after the other guy supposedly bothered a 10-year-old boy.

The mechanic, Jarvis Jermaine Tillman, who on Monday pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to three years behind bars, told a Bibb County Superior Court judge that the March 2015 beating was “poor judgment on my part, sir.”

“Yep, it really was,” Judge Howard Simms replied. “The problem here, Mr. Tillman, is that you just can’t take people out and beat them up with a socket wrench anymore, you understand?”

A prosecutor described further details of the case as “convoluted.”

The validity of Tillman’s claim that the man he attacked may have harmed the boy — a relative of Tillman’s — was not addressed in court.

The beating happened at a house on Fairmont Avenue below Ayers Road off Napier Avenue. Police at the time said the victim, a 25-year-old man, suffered a fractured skull. One version of events said Tillman, 34, robbed the victim at gunpoint and stabbed him in the neck. Another scenario involved the victim being struck with a tire iron.

In court on Monday, Tillman’s lawyer, John Carter, said Tillman and another man, whose case is pending, drove the victim around Macon.

Carter said they told the victim they were rounding up other people to “lay a beatdown” on him. The other people, though, didn’t get involved.

Carter said the victim then pulled a pocketknife and when he did, Tillman, a repairman with at least eight years’ experience, grabbed a socket wrench from his own pocket and slugged the man.

“It’s true that I could have handled the situation better,” Tillman told the judge, adding that he should have called the cops. “The way I was raised, sir, really we don’t involve the police in our personal business — especially when it comes to children.”

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Attacker in Macon socket wrench beating admits ‘poor judgment’."