Police: Ford City man faces felonies for hitting neighbor in head with baseball bat

A man told Ford City police that he was hit in the head with a baseball bat when he went to a neighbor’s house to retrieve items from his former girlfriend.

Benjamin Peter Space, 45, of the 700 block of Fourth Avenue in Ford City, faces charges of aggravated assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, along with a count of reckless endangerment, according to a criminal complaint. The first two charges are felonies.

Space is being detained in the Armstrong County Jail in lieu of a $50,000 cash bond. He faces a preliminary hearing on April 12 before District Judge J. Gary DeComo.

Police wrote in Space’s arrest papers that on April 3 an officer was dispatched to a home several doors away from where Space lives and found a man suffering from a head wound.

The officer said the man had a “large swelling formation” on his head that was bleeding and he told them he was unable to hear out of one ear.

The man told police his former girlfriend is Space’s friend and that he went to his house to get some items from her, according to the complaint.

He told police that Space was in the garage at the rear of the house and that Space opened the door and attacked him with the bat after he knocked.

The man told police that he went back to his house to call for medical help because his cellphone was unable to call 911 from outside his residence.

He told investigators there was evidence of the attack on his phone and turned it over to them, the complaint said.

Police did not indicate in the complaint whether the telephone contained evidence that links Space to the attack.

Medics evaluated the man at the scene before a medical helicopter was dispatched to transport him to a hospital, according to the complaint.

No information was available about the nature and extent of his injuries.