HANCOCK COUNTY — An 18-year-old from Shirley is charged with kidnapping amid allegations he held a friend at gunpoint and recorded it on his cellphone.
A series of criminal charges were filed Friday against Joshua J. Hammons, 109 Illinois St., Shirley. The counts include kidnapping, criminal confinement and battery, records show.
Hammons was being held in the Hancock County Jail at press time as he awaited his first court appearance. He denies the allegations, records show.
The victim told police Hammons forced him into a car, drove him around, and then pointed a gun at him and ordered him recite something, according to police reports. Hammons used his cellphone to make a video recording of the incident, the victim said.
Hammons let the victim go only after he’d promised to repay some money he owed Hammons, officials said.
Friends of both of the teens involved told police they witnessed part of the exchange, officials said.
The alleged incident happened around 4 a.m. Monday but wasn’t reported to the police until late Tuesday. Hammons was arrested Wednesday afternoon following an investigation. Formal criminal charges were filed against him Friday.
Hammons now faces: one Level 3 felony count of kidnapping while armed with a deadly weapon; one Level 3 felony count of criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon; two Level 6 felony counts of pointing a firearm at another person; one Class A misdemeanor of carrying a handgun without a license; and Class B misdemeanors of battery.
The victim told police he was sitting with a friend in a car parked outside a home in Charlottesville when Hammons came up to the vehicle brandishing a handgun, according to police reports.
Hammons pulled the victim out of the car while pointing the handgun at the victim and his friend, the victim told police.
The victim’s friend said she could see Hammons’ finger on the trigger of the gun, according to police reports. Two other girls said they saw the incident from the front porch of the home where the car was parked, reports state.
Hammons then forced the victim into another vehicle and drove away from the house, according to police reports.
Hammons stopped along a rural roadway and forced the victim to “get out and recite something” while he “pointed the gun at (the victim’s) head and recorded it” on his cellphone, reports state.
Hammons got a phone call as he was trying to make the video, which interrupted the recording, the victim said.
So, Hammons forced the victim back into the car and drove another short distance before repeating the ordeal, the victim said: Hammons forced him out of the car a second time at gunpoint while attempting to record the interaction on his cellphone again, reports state.
Police found Hammons inside a cabin at a campground in Greenfield Wednesday afternoon.
They searched the cabin and Hammons’ car, and confiscated Hammons’ cellphone as evidence, along with marijuana, ammunition, a glass pipe that contained methamphetamine residue and handgun they’d also found in the teen’s possession, reports state.
When interviewed by police after his arrest, Hammons said his friends fabricated the story.
He said he’d been with the victim on the day of the incident and took a video of himself hitting the victim while they were driving alone together in his car, according to police reports.
But he never had a gun and never pointed a gun at his friends, Hammons told police.