Police Say Burnsville Man Punched, Bit Victim at Party

A Burnsville man has been charged with assault after police say he punched and bit a man at a party in Lakeville last weekend.

Braden Craig Thompson, 21, faces a felony charge of third-degree assault, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, Lakeville police were called to a home last Saturday on a report of an assault.

When they arrived, police say, they found the victim “visibly injured, winded and sweating,” and with visible injuries, including scratches, swelling over his right cheek and eye, 14 bite marks on his back – some of which were bleeding – and a gouge-type injury to his eye.

The victim told police that he had been at the home for a party, and that he and a woman had been sitting on a bed talking when Thompson burst into the room and began to assault him.

Thompson initially swung at the victim and poked him in the eye, the complaint says. The victim said things became blurry at that point, and the next thing he realized, Thompson was on his back biting him repeatedly, according to the complaint.

The woman in the room also told police that she had been sitting on the bed with the victim when Thompson entered and attacked the man. The woman said she ran out of the room and woke up another man elsewhere in the house, telling him that Thompson was beating up the victim; while she used his cell phone to call police, the man went downstairs and found Thompson and the victim fighting.

The man said Thompson had the victim in a choke hold, and that he tried to break up the fight by pulling Thompson off the victim.

Thompson told police that he came into the room and found the victim undressing in front of the woman, and that the two men began throwing punches at one another. Thompson admitted to police that he put the victim in a headlock, according to the complaint, but he denied being the aggressor.

The victim later told police that he had been to the emergency room twice to be treated for his injuries, and that he had an abrasion on his right eye for which he needs to see an eye specialist.

Thompson is free on a $40,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled for July 18 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.