Deputy Injured Arresting Man

Authorities have released the details of what happened last night that resulted in a sheriff deputy being injured. Deputy Harold Martin had stopped on Highway 18 near Boomer Road when he had come upon a man laying in the road. As martin was getting out of the patrol car, another car pulled up and a woman got out. She said she knew the man on the ground. At that point the man got up, went to the back of the patrol car and started relieving himself on the ground. Finished with his business, the man turned around, opened the passenger front door of the patrol car and went to sit down in the car. Of course, that's not where someone who just peed on the ground should sit, so the deputy told him to get out. The man, later identified as Paul Asher, refused. Then commenced a scuffle, during which Absher kicked Martin in the leg, and Martin yanked him out of the car and onto the ground. The fight continued as Martin tried to handcuff Absher, and as this was going on, the woman came up and laid her hand on the deputy's shoulder...and would not remove it, even when told to several times.

Martin got one handcuff on Absher, but Absher broke loose and swung the cuffed arm at him, trying to hit the deputy in the head. That resulted in Martin using pepper spray on Absher, which didn't do much but cause both mens' eyes to start watering from the pain. Somehow, the deputy got the second cuff on, but then Absher broke loose and ran off. IN spite of another deputy chasing him down and using a Taser on him, Absher continued to be out of control until he was hit by a second Taser shot from a Wilkesboro officer who had responded to the deputy in trouble call. EMS took him to the hospital, where deputies say he remained completely out of control, finally being placed into a medically-induced coma to protect himself and others. Deputy martin was also treated for the eye irritation and released.

When Georgia Minton, the woman involved in the confrontation, showed up at the jail to check on the man, she was arrested, and faces the same charge of assault on a government officials that Absher faces.