Penacook Man Faces Second-Degree Assault Charge After Fight Downtown: Follow-Up

CONCORD, NH — A man from Penacook faces a felony second-degree assault charge after being accused of attacking another man after drinking at Wow Billiards & Bar in Downtown Concord.

Around 1:15 a.m. on Aug. 3, several police officers were sent to North Main Street for a report of a fight outside the bar. A man in his mid-20s told police he had been assaulted by a man who left the area in a red car with a woman driving. Concord fire and rescue teams arrived to tend to the victim, who was bleeding from the face and had a dislocated shoulder.

The reporting officer spoke to a witness who said he was walking in the area and heard yelling and a struggle in front of the bar. The witness arrived at the corner and saw two men fighting and swearing at each other. When the fight ended, one man took off in a car with a woman.

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Officers “established” the man who fled was Hunter Drew, 22, of Village Street in Concord, a report stated, and retrieved video from inside the establishment from a bartender, a report stated.

“(The bartender) provided (an) officer with a photo of the male who allegedly attacked the victim,” the reporting officer said. “The photo was taken from a security camera inside Wow, slightly before the incident occurred.”

An affidavit said Drew was sitting at the bar with a woman in her early 20s. One of the officers identified him from previous contacts, the report stated. The report said the photo of Drew was shown to the victim and he confirmed Drew was the accused attacker.

The reporting officer interviewed the victim at Concord Hospital after a doctor popped his arm back into its socket. In the affidavit, the victim stated he had left the bar when he saw a couple arguing and attempted to get them to stop. While doing so, he was punched in the face and assaulted, the report said. While the hospital interview was going on, other officers searched for Drew and the woman.

One officer visited with a member of Drew’s family who stated the woman involved in the argument had been there earlier, was distraught, but left later. She said the woman dropped off Drew “somewhere along the way, due to them fighting,” the report said.

The reporting officer attempted to reach Drew and the woman via phone contacts in police records, but calls went to voicemail.

On Aug. 6, Drew was called again and picked up the phone, the officer wrote.

“However,” he said, “as soon as I identified myself as a Concord police officer, he went silent, and did not respond to anything I said. I hung up and called back, this time I was automatically forwarded to his voicemail.”

On Aug. 9, the reporting officer met with the bartending again who provided a statement confirming Drew struck the victim sometime after he began to close, according to the affidavit.

On Aug. 10, the reporting officer reached Drew again, the affidavit said, and he was requested to come into headquarters to speak about the case. He was accused of saying he did not want to come in and wanted it off the record. The officer countered that he was trying to get his side of the story and asked if he knew why he was calling. Drew said he “heard some things” and called the incident a “wrestling match” and a “pushing match” after the victim began to give him a hard time while he was arguing with his girlfriend, an affidavit said. The officer accused Drew of admitting he pushed the victim first but did not remember any fists being thrown.

“Drew mentioned a few times that he ‘does Jiu Jitsu’ and was able to get on top of (the victim),” the report said. “Drew mentioned much later on that (the victim) allegedly told (him) that (the victim) was going to ‘kill him.’”

When asked if he was drinking, Drew was accused of admitting he had but added he and the victim were “both intoxicated,” the officer wrote. Once he brought the victim to the ground and got on top of him, “he got off” and “quickly drove off with (the woman) in the car,” the report said.

“There was no reason to wait for police,” the officer accused Drew of adding, while also saying he “did change his narrative throughout my conversation with him, most notably, by later stating (the victim) shoved him first.”

Drew was accused of downplaying the incident, calling it a “normal drunken brawl,” the report said.

“I asked Hunter if it would surprise him to know that the male he fought sustained a dislocated shoulder,” the officer wrote. “Hunter was seemingly not remorseful about the situation and kept saying in sum and substance, ‘things like that happen, especially when he trains Jiu Jitsu.’”

Later that day, the officer received a compact disc of all the medical information connected to the victim — with a doctor noting serious head and lung injuries, the report stated.

A week later, after speaking with the victim again, he said he had never had a dislocated shoulder before, but in the past two weeks, it had come out of its socket twice, and he was having mobility issues due to the injury.

A warrant was issued for Drew’s arrest on Aug. 18. He was arrested six days later. Drew was arraigned in Merrimack County Superior Court on Aug. 24 and appeared again on Sept. 1. He is due back in court for a dispositional conference on Oct. 27.

According to superior court records, Drew was accused of second-degree assault and resisting arrest or detention after an incident in Concord on May 26, 2022. He agreed to a plea deal on the resisting charge, which led to the felony assault charge being dropped. Drew received a 12-month suspended sentence for three years and was required to receive counseling.

In January 2022, he was arrested on criminal threatening, reckless conduct, and disorderly conduct charges, accused of threatening people with a gun in Penacook. He reached a plea deal on that case — pleading guilty to disorderly conduct and reckless conduct charges on Sept. 29, 2022, also with two 12-month suspended sentences, for three years, with 12 days of credit served, with required good behavior and not owning or possessing a firearm. The felony charges were dropped as part of the plea deal.

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