KINGSHILL — Police are investigating after being called to a domestic dispute at a housing project where a woman gave a man a fat lip in a struggle over a cell phone and a hammer.
Shanika Mathurin, of St. Croix, was arrested and charged with third-degree assault-domestic violence, simple assault & battery-domestic violence and disturbance of the peace by fighting, the Virgin Islands Police Department said.
According to the probable cause fact sheet, officers were called to Walter I.M. Hodge Pavilion at 1:59 a.m. on December 10 to investigate a “physical disturbance” between a man and a woman.
“We contacted a male and a female individual, both struggling to grab a hammer that was in both of their hands,” a VIPD officer said in a sworn affidavit filed in Superior Court. “I told both parties to drop the weapon, and the female individual. later identified as Ms. Shanika Mathurin, yelled out: ‘No,’ and the male individual was able to grab the hammer from Ms. Mathurin and hand it over to me.”
The police officer was able to separate Mathurin from her boyfriend — and placed the boyfriend outside of the apartment, according to the probable cause fact sheet.
“Ms. Mathurin then ran out of the apartment and physically assaulted (the boyfriend) by hitting him in his face and about his body in my presence,” Superior Court documents show. “I then escorted Ms. Mathurin back inside the apartment and placed her under arrest for assaulting (her boyfriend.)”
Next, the officers took a statement from the boyfriend, who has the initials D.P.
“He stated that at about 1:50 a.m. he woke up to use the bathroom and saw Ms. Mathurin on her cell phone,” the probable cause fact sheet says. “D.P. stated that he asked Ms. Mathurin why she was on her cell phone at this time of the morning and then she began hitting him in the face and telling him that he needed to get out of her house.”
The boyfriend told police that he tried restraining Mathurin to keep her from hitting him, according to Superior Court documents.
“She went out to her vehicle outside, got a hammer from her car, came back inside, and began swinging the hammer at him, which hit his left arm,” the probable cause fact sheet says. “D.P. stated that he called the 911 Emergency Call Center and Ms. Mathurin kept trying to hit his cell phone out of his hand and was hitting him on his face, which caused his lip to bruise.”
At the apartment, Mathurin said that she had taken a restraining order out on D.P., but that the court “dropped it,” and that she allowed her boyfriend to stay at her residence because he was ill, but that she now wanted him to leave, a sworn VIPD affidavit filed in Superior Court shows.
“Ms. Mathurin admitted to hitting D.P. with the hammer prior to our arrival,” the probable cause fact sheet says.
Officers did not observe any injuries to suspect Mathurin, but saw that D.P. had “a busted bottom lip and a cut on his left forearm,” the sworn VIPD affidavit filed in Superior Court shows.
Mathurin was remanded to the custody of the Bureau of Corrections at the John A. Bell Adult Correctional Facility pending further court action.
Despite weeks of repeated requests, the police refused to release a mugshot of the suspect Mathurin.