Troubling reports emerged on Monday, December 5, 2022, that a suspected attacker was on the run after striking a Willits man with a baseball bat causing serious injuries to his head and face. The following day, 33-year-old Christopher Roy Krch was arrested as the suspected attacker. However, since then, a video has been released showing a different set of events may have occurred.
Krch, who was booked into the Mendocino County jail on charges including felony assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious injury, was released one day later.
Krch resolutely denies these allegations, calling earlier reports “slander on my name.”
On the evening of Sunday, December 4, 2022, Krch said a subject stole his smartphone, identification, and debit cards off a Willits bar’s billiards table. He asked employees at the local watering hole for surveillance footage of the theft and they obliged.
In that footage provided by Krch, a subject is clearly seen at a billiards table picking an object up, slipping it in his back pocket, and walking away towards an exit.
Later that evening, Krch says he was able to track the device to where the suspect lived. In the early morning hours of Monday morning, Krch arrived at a residence on East Mendocino Avenue to retrieve his phone where Krch said “things then escalated and we exchanged blows in which there were no weapons involved.”
The interaction was videotaped by someone witnessing the altercation. The video clearly depicts Chris Krch confronting another subject, asking how his cell phone had come into their possession. Heated words devolve into sounds of a scuffle and blows which continue for approximately 20 seconds.
Early Monday morning, the man Krch alleges stole his phone contacted law enforcement and reported he had been beaten with a baseball bat. Krch emphatically denies this, framing the interaction that night as more of a circumstance of mutual combat.
When asked why he did not contact law enforcement to assist in recovering his stolen phone, Krch said. “I didn’t want to make it a big deal. I just wanted my phone back.”
Willits Police Department Chief Fabian Lizarraga said Krch was released from the county jail “pending more follow-up at the DA’s request.”
Addressing the video of the altercation, Chief Lizarraga said his investigators have the video “but will be doing more investigation to determine exactly what happened.”
“The case is still active and open,” Chief Lizarraga told us.
Damn
CHRIS KRCH IS SUPERMAN!!! TRUTH ,JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY!!!! YOU ARE A STUD!!! I SPEAK FROM MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE THEFT AND ALTERCATION EARLIER IN MY LIFE, AND, YOU DESERVE MORE JUSTICE YOURSELF!! I PRAY FOR OUR POLICE FORCE TO SEE AND FIX THEIR “PUBLICIZED” MISTAKE AND CHANGE THEIR PROTOCOL,PRACTICES TO BETTER SERVE THE PUBLIC…