A local man is behind bars after a midnight meltdown involving a baseball bat, a frantic neighborhood search, and a game of hide-and-seek in the bushes.

Just after midnight on July 5, Crossville Police officers responded to a flurry of 911 calls near Webb Avenue. A local resident reported that a man carrying a baseball bat had banged on his door begging him to call police, claiming his girlfriend had assaulted him. However, the situation quickly escalated when the man began shouting profanities at the witness and wandering down the street, aggressively swinging the bat.

Officer Amy Sherrill arrived at a Webb Avenue apartment complex to check on potential victims. There, she met with a woman who recounted a terrifying ordeal. She told police that her boyfriend, Michael Sturgill, was highly intoxicated and had swung a baseball bat at her while she was holding their infant son. Fortunately, neither she nor the baby was struck.

While neighbors confirmed seeing Sturgill outside swinging the bat, no one could corroborate that he had targeted his girlfriend.

As police searched the area, Sturgill fled toward East First Street. The search ended around 12:35 AM when Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy Aidyn Smith spotted Sturgill hiding in the bushes near the porch of the historic train depot on North Main Street.

When deputies pulled Sturgill from the bushes, he was missing both his baseball bat and his shoes.

Once in handcuffs, Sturgill’s version of the night’s events rapidly unraveled. He claimed he only grabbed the bat for self-defense because his girlfriend’s cousin was coming over to fight him, denying any domestic dispute occurred.

However, Sturgill’s narrative kept changing:

• He claimed he was hiding from the cousin, not the police.

• He later admitted to another officer that he had dropped his belongings while actively running from the police.

• After initially insisting nothing happened between him and his girlfriend, he arrived at the jail intake and suddenly claimed she had punched him in the face. Officers noted there were no marks on his cheek to support the claim.

“I observed him to be a danger to himself and others due to his running around in the dark and swinging a bat around… while intoxicated,” Officer Sherrill noted in her report, adding that Sturgill smelled strongly of alcohol and spoke erratically.

Because witnesses only saw Sturgill swinging the bat in the air and not directly at anyone, police determined there was insufficient evidence to charge him with assault.

Sturgill was booked into the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office on a single charge of Public Intoxication. At the request of the frightened neighbor who first called 911, Sturgill has also been officially banned from returning to that property.