WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — A Wichita County jury finds a Wichita Falls man who represented himself guilty of assaulting a WFPD officer and he is sentenced to prison. Other criminal cases against the defendant are pending.
Lorin Turner, 41, was given a 5-year sentence by the 78th District jury on Tuesday. Records show he waived his right to an attorney.
Officers were dispatched last April to a home in the 1000 block of Hirschi Lane about a criminal trespass on the property Turner had been barred from.
Police had responded to the address several times last year on trespass, assault, and violation of a protective order.
When they arrived they say Turner told them he came to the house where his estranged wife was staying with her family, because the house they used to live in had burned down, and he had no place to stay that night.
Then they say he began to yell at them and his wife’s family, demanding to be let in the house, then charged at his wife and her brother who were in a doorway.
Officers grabbed Turner and say he turned and began fighting with them.
As officers attempted to handcuff him, they say he punched one officer in the face, then while on the ground, grabbed the officer’s face and tried to gouge him in the eyes.
Officers then got control of Turner’s arms and took him into custody.
A criminal trespass charge was filed in addition to the assault charge, and that case is still pending according to court records.
Also pending is an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon filed on April 9 last year at the same address.
The victim’s mother said Turner had been there three times that day looking for his estranged wife, and on one of the incidents brought an ax and after hitting the side of his truck with it, raised it over his head and threatened her. She then retreated inside the house and said he left.
Police say prior to this incident, they had investigated an attempted assault with a broom handle.
One month later police returned after the estranged wife reported Turner was texting and calling her repeatedly, threatening he was going to do something.
Officers filed a violation of a protective order charge, then learned Turner had just been arrested at another location and was in jail. They say while in jail, he tried to contact the victim 15 times through the jail phone system.
Jail records do not show Turner has yet been booked back into jail awaiting transfer to a state facility.