Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Sonora PD press release re:willful cruelty to child arrest

9 July 2012, at approx. 5:02 pm, Officers from the Sonora Police Department responded to Regal Cinemas 10 regarding a battery.
When Officers arrived, they learned that a 12 year old boy and a nine year old girl had been attacked by a male subject, who was unknown to them. The children were watching a showing of Spiderman with their mother; when a male subject, who had been snoring during most of the movie, suddenly woke up. Several witnesses stated that the male subject climbed over theater chairs “like a spider” and then punched the 12 year old victim in the back of the head for no apparent reason.


The mother then got between the suspect and the 12 year old victim. The suspect then ran after the nine year old victim. Movie viewers started yelling at the suspect, who then ran out of the theater. The 12 year old victim sustained no visible injury as a result of the attack.
Officers contacted the subject who as identified as Juan Martinez, 42. Martinez is a carnival worker in town for the fair. Martinez claimed he was “sleep walking” and had no knowledge of his actions.
Martinez was taken into custody without incident and transported to the Tuolumne County Jail and booked for felony willful cruelty to a child.