Columbus, Ohio

From the Columbus Dispatch of November 21, 2006

Man with bat beats Crime Stoppers chief

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers President Kevin Miles had to draw his handgun to stop a man from beating him with a baseball bat on Sunday, he said.

"Fortunately for him I didn’t have a bullet in the chamber," Miles said of his attacker, described only as a light-haired white man in his late 20s.

"I saw the guy right up close. … I know I should be able to tell more. Maybe if I settle down," he said last night.

Miles, who oversees the local nonprofit group that pays police informants, said he lay in an alley for 15 minutes after the attack, comforted by his 3-yearold Shar-Pei, Archie, who also was struck with the bat.

Miles said he eventually called a friend and went to Riverside Methodist Hospital, suffering severe bruises on his arm, head and leg.

"My arm is not broken, but it sure as heck feels like it," said Miles, 49.

He said he was walking Archie on Sunday morning in Victorian Village when a car pulled up to him in an alley.

"Before I knew it, he was out of the car and he was hitting me," Miles said.

He tried to block the bat with his arm, then was struck in the leg and went down. The attacker also hit the dog before Miles pointed the gun at him. The attacker said something to Miles and left, he said. He wasn’t robbed.

Miles has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. His dog is OK, he said.