A Vanderwagen man named Calvin Johnson has been charged with battery after he attacked a woman who was just trying to fill her car up with gas.
On July 21 around 9:30 am, McKinley County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Davis was dispatched to a house on Coal Basin Road after a woman reportedly showed up to the house claiming she had been abducted.
When Davis met with the 19-year-old victim, she told him that her car ran out of gas on State Road 118 and Armand Ortega Boulevard near the Allsups Store. A man who was later identified as 35-year-old Johnson stopped and asked the woman if she needed help.
After Johnson put gas in the car, the woman reportedly tried starting her car but it wouldn’t start, so Johnson offered to give the woman a ride to her house in Church Rock.
The woman got into Johnson’s gray Pontiac Vibe, and he began driving west. He got onto Mentmore Road, and drove north, heading toward Carbon Coal Road. According to Davis’s report, the woman asked Johnson why he was going that way and he told her it was “another way around.”
After a while, Johnson pulled off the road toward a gate on a hill. He then parked the car and offered the woman meth and marijuana.
The woman repeatedly told Johnson she didn’t want the drugs, but he kept asking her to join him in the backseat of the car.
As the woman sat in the passenger seat of his car Johnson began to lay the seat down. At this point the woman was still refusing Johnson’s advances. He then tried to pull her into the backseat.
The woman tried to escape the situation by opening the passenger’s side door, but Johnson held on to her. Johnson reportedly had a gun in the car’s middle console. The victim tried to grab the gun to “make sure he would not use it against her.”
Jonson asked for the gun back, and allegedly told the victim he didn’t care about her.
The victim was able to partially get out of the car at that point, and she told Johnson she would give the gun back if he let her go. While she was pleading with him, Johnson was still holding on to her and trying to get her back in the car.
The situation continued like this for a while, until the victim fell to the ground. She took that moment to drop the gun and break free from Johnson’s grasp, running toward some trees she could hide behind.
Johnson allegedly yelled out to the woman, saying “she was going to make this worse.” Johnson began looking for her, but the woman was able to run away. She ran about a mile toward Coal Basin Road.
When Davis asked the victim if Johnson had touched her inappropriately, the woman said he hadn’t. She described Johnson as a man in his 30’s, about five feet six inches tall, with a slim build and missing teeth. She said he looked “like a glonnie” and that he had short hair. She also said he was wearing a black shirt with plaid blue/white baggy shorts.
Around 1 pm, Deputies Elliot Peterson and Brandon Salazar found the Pontiac Vibe at the Speedway gas station at 1320 S. Second St.
Davis placed Johnson in handcuffs, and as he read him his Miranda Rights Johnson repeatedly said he did nothing wrong.
Johnson was arrested with false imprisonment and battery. His defense attorney filed a motion for a competency evaluation on Aug. 2, claiming that his client was incompetent to stand trial. The attorney argued that his client’s case be moved to District Court, but the state opposed the motion.
Staff Reports
