A father of four was arrested Saturday after he allegedly drove his pickup truck drunk with his children and his girlfriend as passengers and became violent upon arriving home.
Nicholas C. Emerich, 33, of 401 West St., was charged with three counts of domestic violence and one count of felonious assault after officers of the Bellefontaine Police Department were dispatched to the residence around 2:25 a.m.
Emerich’s 13-year-old son called emergency dispatchers claiming his father was intoxicated and threatening others with a gun. They were able to get the gun from him and fled toward the Logan County Sheriff’s Office.
The son reported the suspect picked up him and siblings and took them to a basketball game in Riverdale. On the way home, he began to drive erratically and was speeding past other traffic.
The suspect’s girlfriend, Erica Hayman, repeatedly asked him to slow down but he would not.
Once at the residence, he allegedly began arguing with Hayman in their bedroom and allegedly put a gun to her head.
Emerich’s children ages 11-16 consoled her when the suspect left the residence and began to devise a plan to leave the residence. The suspect however called their paternal grandparents who live in Quincy.
Their grandmother Sharon Emerich arrived at the house and drove them to sheriff’s office. There they met with their grandfather Dennis Emerich and three of them returned with him to retrieve Hayman’s wallet.
The suspect was there and shoved his father into couch as the children ran back to the car and called 911. Dennis Emerich soon exited the house with the suspect’s loaded .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun and the group returned to the sheriff’s office.
In the mean time, Sharon Emerich and Hayman located the suspect and convinced him to go to the sheriff’s office.
He was visibly intoxicated and acted as if nothing wrong had taken place.
He was lodged in the Logan County Jail.