CRIME & COURTS

Police: One stabbed at YMCA following fight over racial slurs

Morgan Gstalter
mgstalter@dmreg.com

Des Moines police said one man is in critical condition after he was stabbed with scissors at a YMCA apartment complex following days of fighting between two men that involved the use of racial epithets.

Cory Hogan, 27, of Des Moines has been charged with assault causing willful injury.

Police were first called to the Southwest 9th Street YMCA Supportive Housing Complex at about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, according to a police report. At that time, Hogan told officers that he had been involved in a dispute over cigarettes on Tuesday with a black man and that the two of them had traded racial epithets.

Cory Hogan was arrested on Thursday for assault - willful injury for stabbing a man with scissors.

Then, on Wednesday, Hogan said, that man slapped Hogan and held a pocketknife to his throat and threatened him for using the racial term. Police said no witnesses would speak about what happened; the other man was arrested on an unrelated warrant for theft, but was later released and returned to the complex.

YMCA staff called police just after midnight on Thursday morning to a report that the black man had been stabbed. In addition, while officers were on their way, according to a police report, Hogan called police dispatchers to say he had stabbed somebody with scissors.

Police found the victim lying on the ground, covered in blood, with a serious stab wound to the upper right arm and shoulder. An officer who could see Hogan told him to come to a door. He compiled and was taken into custody without incident, according to the report. He had a cut on his head and marks on his hands from the scissors.

Hogan told police that he had brought the scissors outside for protection and that when the victim returned from Polk County Jail, he started yelling at him and punched him. Hogan said that he then stabbed the victim.

According to the report, Hogan said that he called the police because he had acted in self-defense.

Police said the victim was in critical condition at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Hogan was being held Thursday on $10,000 bond.