Today we’re going to be talking about aggravated assault charges. Aggravated assaults are very serious here in Arizona. You could potentially looking at going to prison for sometimes up to five to 15 years, even if it’s your first offense, particularly if a deadly weapon is involved. Deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument. That’s going to be a gun, a knife, can even be a car, a baseball bat, whatever. You’ll see in these situations if you’re charged with it, you could be looking at a lot of prison time.

Now if a person commits aggravated assault, if they intentionally, recklessly, or knowingly cause any physical injury to another person with a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument like we were just talking about. You shoot a gun at somebody, you hit somebody with a gun, then you’re going to be charged with that, unless there’s certain defenses which we’ll help you with when you come and see us. Then, there’s also intentionally placing another person at reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury or death. Now, that is where it could just be pointing a firearm at someone. You don’t even actually have to shoot them and you could be charged just as harshly as if you actually did fire and hit somebody with a gun.

There’s also intentionally requisitioning or causing physical injury to someone while entering the home to commit an assault, so basically if you break into somebody’s house to assault them and then you actually do assault them is going to be charged with aggravated assault. There’s also aggravated assault if you assault someone while they’re tied up, also if you assault someone, even if you don’t cause serious physical injury, but if they’re under 15, also if you were to cause serious physical injury to someone, if you hurt them so bad that they’re seriously disfigured, like a bad scar, that could also be broken bones.

The last one would be if you assault a police officer, medical personnel, a nurse, a firefighter, a teacher, a judge, a prosecutor, anyone that’s in the middle of their official duties, that’s considered a felony as well. Even though it would only be a misdemeanor potentially against a normal person, someone’s who’s working for the government because we want to give them some extra protection so they could protect and serve. These are all very, very serious felonies and you’re going to need some help if you are charged with them or could potentially be charged with them.

If you are looking at any of these charges, please give us a call. We’d love to be able to help you.