LINCOLN HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Police said a Lincoln Heights teen might have saved two lives Friday when he stepped in to fend off an attacker wielding a hammer.
Raymon Barham, 18, said he was in his own Jackson Street apartment when he heard screaming from the unit above on Friday morning.
When he stepped in to investigate, Steven Walker was standing above his cousin, Jemell Williams, and swinging a hammer, according to police.
“My cousin’s face, it was like blood everywhere,” Barham said. His cousin’s girlfriend, Jessica Stewart, was also injured in the attack.
Barham said he stepped in front of Walker and fought the other man off -- and Walker turned the hammer on him. Police arrested Walker shortly after he fled the scene of the attack, having repeatedly struck Barham, Williams and Stewart with the hammer.
Walker was charged with three counts of felonious assault. Municipal Court Judge Ted N. Berry set his bond at $310,000 during an arraignment hearing Saturday morning: Berry doubled the amount from $50,000 to $100,000 on each felonious assault charge after Walker went on a profanity-laced tirade. The judge also added one count of obstruction of justice and set Walker's bond at $10,000 on that count for his courtroom language.
See for yourself in the player below (contains censored profanity and a profane gesture):
Although Barham was injured badly enough to warrant a hospital visit alongside his cousin, who remains in poor condition, and his cousin’s girlfriend, who needed 16 surgical staples, he said he would gladly intervene again.
“I had to do it for my family,” he said. “That’s one of my family members, feel me? So what’s going to happen happens."
