19-year-old charged for allegedly beating man unconscious after nearly crashing into his daughter’s car

BLACKFOOT — A 19-year-old man is charged with a felony after allegedly almost crashing into a stopped car and beating the driver’s father unconscious when he was confronted.

Thomas Andrew Larsen is charged with felony aggravated battery, causing great bodily harm or disability.

According to court records, a Bingham County Sheriff’s deputy was on patrol on April 25 around 5:25 p.m., when he was dispatched to a home for a report of a man who had been jumped on the street by two other men.

The deputy met with the victim, who reportedly had a “severe nose bleed”, blood down the front of his chest, hands covered in blood, a bleeding left knee, and a “big scrape” on the back of his head.

The victim told deputies that he was sitting outside the house, watching his daughter leave in her car. As she pulled into the street, a maroon car reportedly came speeding down the road, nearly wrecking into his daughter’s car.

According to the victim, he initially thought they had wrecked, and became angry, following the maroon car in his truck to talk to the driver. As he followed, he says the driver of the maroon car “kept brake checking him and flipping him off out of the window.”

Eventually, the car stopped, and two people got out. The victim exited his truck and walked up to the two men, when one of them reportedly stated: “You’ve got a problem?”

The victim says he replied, “Yeah, you about hit my daughter. Learn how to drive,” and the “next thing he knew, he was picking himself off of he ground,” according to court documents.

The deputy then spoke with the driver, identified as Larsen, and his passenger, who has not been charged regarding this incident.

Larsen stated that he was driving down Tanner Lane and saw a car backing out of a driveway that stopped in the middle of the road. He claims he slowed down and went around the car, off the road to the right.

As he drove past, he says a man got into a pickup truck and sped toward him. Larsen admitted to brake-checking the truck and eventually parking in a nearby driveway, where the man “got in his face” and was yelling at him.”

Larsen says he told the man to “get the f*** out of here” before the man told him “you need to learn how to f****** drive” and slapped Larsen across the face. Larsen states he then hit the man in the face twice, causing him to fall.

He then reportedly told deputies that he got on top of the man and “hit (him) three more times in the face” before deputies were called. Larsen says he then got off the man, and the victim got in his truck and drove down the road.

Deputies searched the area where the fight reportedly happened and said there was “a decent amount of blood on the pavement of the road, in front of the house.” Larsen reportedly admitted it was the victim’s blood.

When asked what his thought process was when the victim fell down, Larsen reportedly stated, “After he went down, I was kind of just scared cause I didn’t know. To be honest, I have never been in a fight. This is my first fight, and he’s a 55-year-old man, whose gut, I mean, he’s way bigger than me. So I was like, f*** I don’t know. So I hit him, and then I was like, this isn’t going to come back at me, so I just hit him a couple more times. I was just going to make sure,” according to the deputy’s report.

Deputies explained to Larsen that self-defense was justified at the beginning of the fight, but not when he continued to hit the victim on the ground. Larsen was then arrested and transported to the Bingham County Jail.

On the drive to the jail, Larsen reportedly told deputies that he thought the victim was intoxicated.

After dropping him off, the deputy went to Bingham Memorial Hospital to speak to the victim. During a conversation with the victim and his wife, the deputy learned that his nose was broken and that he had allegedly lost consciousness on the road when he got hit.

The victim told deputies that he didn’t remember hitting Larsen, but remembered that he “flipped” his cowboy hat off. The victim stated he did not fight back and admitted to drinking alcohol earlier in the day, but said he doesn’t believe it had any effect on his decision-making that day.

Later that night, the deputy learned that the victim had a 9mm brain bleed and was being transported to EIRMC. In his report, the deputy writes that the hospital was “having a hard time keeping him stable.” The man’s condition is currently unknown.

Larsen was booked into jail with a $10,000 bond, which he paid, and was released on April 27. A no-contact order was issued for the victim, and Larsen is expected to appear for a preliminary hearing on May 21.

If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Though Larsen has been charged with this crime, it does not necessarily mean he committed it. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.