Stabbed Not: Police Arrest Newport Man on Domestic Violence Charges

NEWPORT, RI—Timothy J. Lockhart, 33, of Newport, was arrested Sunday at 6:59 p.m., after a fight with his girl friend, Newport police said.

According to the complaint, the woman said he had followed her around her apartment and screamed at her after she asked him to leave.

As police investigated, they received a call from the Newport Hospital emergency room in connection with a patient with a possible stab wound. Skin was missing from the man's right middle finger, and he also suffered a small 1/2-inch cut on his right index finger. That wound required four stitches to close.

The wounded man was Lockhart.

According to the officer who interviewed him, he also had abrasions on his hand; they looked like the type of injury incurred while punching something, police said.

Lockhart said his girlfriend stabbed him with a small folding pocket knife. However, he did not want her to get in any trouble.

Police went to the girlfriend's apartment to investigate Lockhart's story. She told officers they'd had an argument in her apartment. He took her cell phone and accused her of texting another man. She told him to leave. She became afraid and took out her pocket knife. He hit the knife and knocked it away.

According to the police report, the apartment showed "signs of a scuffle." A fan was knocked over; a three-drawer storage bin was broken; an alarm clock lay on the floor; and there was a hole in the wall.

"It was clear that a physical struggle had happened in the room," the officer wrote. Police interviewed the woman's daughter who claimed she came home and found Lockhart holding her mother "from behind." The knife was on the floor.

Lockhart was charged with domestic assault and battery and domestic disorderly conduct, police said.