Memphis, Tennessee readers may be interested to know about an alleged stabbing that occurred in Knoxville recently. The woman involved was arrested on aggravated assault charges.
The arrest was made after a domestic dispute between a man, 45, and a woman, 42. After the man was hospitalized for stab wounds, police arrested the woman and charged her with aggravated assault. The man was listed in stable condition later that night. The woman is being held on a $6,000 bond.
This story illustrates the important distinction between assault and aggravated assault. In Tennessee an assault is committed when a person causes bodily injury to another person; puts another person in reasonable fear of bodily injury; or has physical contact with another person which a reasonable person would consider to be extremely offensive. An aggravated assault is committed when the accused causes serious bodily injury to another person; uses a deadly weapon, or displays one; or attempts or intends to strangle another person. The penalties for an aggravated assault are more severe as it is viewed to be a more serious crime.
When an aggravated assault involves the use of a weapon, it makes no difference whether the weapon causes an injury to a person or not. Just as regular assault does not require physical harm, but only that the person charged acted in way to put someone in reasonable fear for their safety, assault with a deadly weapon is charged as aggravated assault because the fear involved is a fear of a more serious injury or even death.
A weapon is considered a deadly weapon if it could cause death or serious injury. Guns and knives obviously fall into this category. Some objects that are not normally considered deadly could be classified as deadly weapons by the manner in which they are used. For example, while a baseball bat is not normally considered to be a deadly weapon, if the perpetrator swings it at a person’s head, or threatens to do so, the bat could then be considered to be deadly.
Source: WATE.com, “Woman charged after domestic dispute results in stabbing in East Knoxville,” Nov. 18, 2012
