A Pennsylvania man was charged with assault after he allegedly tossed pumpkins at an elderly woman parked outside of his house on Wednesday.
James Gazis, a 40-year-old from Pittsburgh, was charged with aggravated assault and for the propulsion of missiles after he chucked the gourds at Robin Faulkner, a grandmother who had been waiting in her vehicle to pick up her grandchild, according to court documents.
A criminal complaint obtained by the Washington Examiner said Gazis’s wife, Melissa, shouted that an elderly woman had almost hit her and their child as they were crossing the street and that the woman should park elsewhere. Gazis then came outside and tossed a white pumpkin, which hit the car windshield.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the woman in the car said after she had rolled down her window, her son, James Moore told WPXI.
Gazis then threw a “bigger orange pumpkin” through the car window, subsequently hitting the woman’s head, the criminal complaint said.
Officer Patton said in the criminal complaint that upon arriving on the scene he noticed Faulkner had been clutching a towel over her left eye and head. She claimed that her nose was bleeding and she had a headache from the incident.
Moore said his mother ended up with a cut from the second pumpkin after it had knocked her glasses “into her nose.”
Medics treated the grandmother for her injuries on the scene, Cara Cruz, a public information officer with the City of Pittsburgh told the Washington Examiner.
Moore described to WPXI how his mother had been “shaking” and clutching her face, telling him to call 911 because Gazis had just chucked a pumpkin at her.
Gazis and Moore ended up in a “fistfight” in which Moore threw Gazis to the ground, said the criminal complaint, which added that Gazis sustained a minor cut on his hand and abrasions on his feet.
DEVELOPING:
This is apparently the pumpkin a Bloomfield man threw at a grandmother’s vehicle as she was parked on Pearl St, waiting to pick up her grandson, per police.
A larger one, her son tells me, hit her in the face, causing a concussion @wpxi pic.twitter.com/PuOuUzdOJW
— Liz Kilmer (@LizKilmerWPXI) October 21, 2021
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Officer Ross Patton was contacted by Detective Bryner, who had watched the surveillance footage from the city, and informed Patton that Melissa Gazis and her child “did not appear” to have been in any danger of being hit by Faulkner, the criminal complaint said.
Gazis was arrested and released on a “nonmonetary” bail within the same day and is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 10 for a preliminary hearing, according to the court docket.
