After watching a video clip of a local musician being \u201cbeaten to a pulp\u201d outside a liquor store in downtown Juneau this past summer, a Juneau judge says he doesn\u2019t buy the argument that the assault was in self-defense, as a defense attorney maintained.<\/p>\n
A prosecutor played the video for Judge Philip Pallenberg in Juneau Superior Court on Thursday during Darrin D. Austin\u2019s sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n
The video shows C Scott Fry, a well-known bassist and a fixture of the downtown music scene, starting the fight, but \u201cnone of that in any way, I think, justifies what came after,\u201d Pallenberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t defending himself in my view,\u201d the judge said of Austin. \u201cHe was retaliating or responding to what Mr. Fry apparently … initiated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pallenberg sentenced Austin to serve four years in jail for the June 6, 2015, assault in front of Percy\u2019s Liquor Store. Austin has been in custody since his June 10 arrest.<\/p>\n
Security cameras at the Walter Soboleff building captured the incident on Front Street. The video played in court showed Fry approach Austin in the early hours of the morning, forcefully shove him into the wall, and yank his shirt collar, pulling him to the ground. Both men fell on the sidewalk \u2014 Austin on top of Fry. The general consensus among the attorneys and judge was that Fry hit his head on either the sidewalk or a lightpole at that point, knocking himself unconscious.<\/p>\n
After that, though, the video shows that Fry did not move at all, and Austin began beating him. Austin was seen punching Fry in the face and repeatedly stomping on his face and kicking him while Fry lay on the ground.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Angie Kemp said Austin had \u201cmultiple opportunities\u201d to walk away during the assault, which lasted about two minutes, but instead he chose to stay and continue beating Fry. Kemp said it was \u201cexceptionally fortunate\u201d that seconds after Austin walked away and off-camera, a police officer driving downtown noticed Fry on the ground, which led to him receiving immediate medical assistance.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Eve Soutiere, of the Office of Public Advocacy, argued that Austin was the victim in the case and that he did \u201cwhat any of us would have done\u201d after being attacked in the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad this been a case where he attacked Mr. Fry for no good reason, I don\u2019t think I could make these arguments at all,\u201d she said, requesting two years of prison and four years probation. \u201cBut (Austin) was the victim of an assault. Mr. Austin was doing what any of us would have done and protecting himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cThis attack could have gone very badly for Mr. Austin, had he been on the bottom of the pile and had he hit the lightpole. We could be here for an assault case where Mr. Fry was the defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pallenberg agreed that could have been the case, but that Austin\u2019s reaction to Fry\u2019s provocation was disproportionate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m not going to defend what Mr. Fry did \u2014 he was out of line,\u201d Pallenberg said. \u201cBut none of it could possibly justify what came after.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said of the self-defense claim: \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a basis for saying that Mr. Austin was doing that because he was frightened of being hurt or terrified of Mr. Fry. Mr. Fry, as I said, was lying unconscious on the sidewalk, being beaten to a pulp.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to what led up to the incident, Pallenberg said, \u201cWe\u2019ll never know.\u201d Neither Austin nor Fry remember it. Austin told police he was \u201cblack-out drunk,\u201d and police reports indicated his blood-alcohol level was 0.171 percent. Fry\u2019s blood alcohol content was 0.187 percent and he sustained a brain injury as a result of the incident.<\/p>\n
Fry, who did not appear at Thursday\u2019s hearing, testified earlier before a grand jury that he only knew Austin from an incident two years prior when Austin was trespassing at the Alaskan Hotel and Bar, where Fry works. He said he doesn\u2019t remember why he started the fight.<\/p>\n
Austin averted his eyes when the video played in the courtroom on Thursday, and apologized when given the chance to speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wish I could have stayed sober and this wouldn\u2019t have happened,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, which (if I had been) sober, I wouldn\u2019t be here. I just wish I could have stayed sober for my children, which I should have because once I lost them, I just lost myself. I couldn\u2019t watch that movie, the video, so I wish I could say sorry to him, but what happened happened. I couldn\u2019t stop myself. I can\u2019t remember still.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge ordered that Austin, who previously pled guilty to felony assault in connection to the case, pay restitution to cover Fry\u2019s medical bills. The amount has not yet been determined. ADA Kemp said the bills are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, since Fry wasn\u2019t insured at the time.<\/p>\n
In addition to the brain injury, Fry also sustained broken ribs, nose and eye socket, and multiple facial fractures. He told the Empire previously he had to relearn how to walk and talk. He was released from a rehabilitative center late last year and has since returned to Juneau. He said he\u2019s also relearning how to play the guitar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After watching a video clip of a local musician being \u201cbeaten to a pulp\u201d outside a liquor store in downtown Juneau this past summer, a Juneau judge says he doesn\u2019t buy the argument that the assault was in self-defense, as a defense attorney maintained. A prosecutor played the video for Judge Philip Pallenberg in Juneau […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":2810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}