By Joe Johnson
A homeless man was arrested Thursday afternoon following an apparent altercation over control of a street corner for panhandling, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report.
Officers responded shortly before 3 a.m. to the corner of Hawthorne and Oglethorpe avenues on a report of a man that had been punched, according to the report.
Upon arrival, officer found a 52-year-old homeless man who was bleeding from the nose.
The victim reportedly told officers that a tall black male with a beard and wearing a brown shirt with white stripes came up from behind and told him, “White boy get off of the corner.”
“The male told (the victim) other things but could not make out everything but believes the male made a threat to kill him,” an officer wrote in the report.
The suspect then punched the victim in the face and demanded that he surrender his wallet, according to the report, which noted the victim pulled out a pocketknife and prepared to defend himself, at which time the suspect ran away across the street and toward a homeless camp located behind a CVS Pharmacy.
The officer noted in the report he believed the altercation “was over the control of a corner to panhandle.”
Officers spread out in the area and located a man who fit the suspect’s description off Brooklyn Road. He was detained and subsequently identified by the victim as the person who attacked him, according to the police report.
The suspect, identified as 58-year-old Timothy Lee Ogletree, was arrested and charged with robbery.
Ogletree stated that nothing happened between him and the victim, according to the police report.
At a Friday morning hearing before a Magistrate Court Judge, Ogletree was granted a $4,000 own recognizance bond, but he remained in custody at the county jail as of late that afternoon.