Douglas County District 1 Commissioner Freddie Ashmon Jr. was arrested for an accusation of simple battery Monday after a resident filed a complaint charging that Ashmon attacked him at an April 30 public town hall meeting.

Ashmon turned himself in Monday afternoon at Douglas County Jail and was later released on a $1,000 bond, said Chief Deputy Stan Copeland. The case will be turned over to the Douglas County Solicitor General’s Office for possible prosecution.

The resident, Jimmy Hulsey, 63, of 965 Old Dallas Highway, Douglasville, filed charges against Ashmon, claiming that the commissioner slapped his hand while grabbing at some papers Hulsey was holding. The contact caused a bruise and blood blister, Hulsey claimed.

Contacted Monday afternoon by the Douglas County Sentinel, Ashmon said, “He’s planning on running for office against me and these are the only tactics he can use. My record speaks for itself. My goal is to still do good work for the county.”

Ashmon said his latest project is to help high school graduates get into college.

Hulsey was called Monday afternoon by the Sentinel and a callback message was left with his wife. He had not returned the call by the newspaper deadline.

However, in a May 12 interview with the Sentinel, Hulsey denied he is seeking any office.

The incident in question occurred at a 5:30 p.m. district town hall meeting that Ashmon scheduled at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Lithia Springs. The confrontation took place more than an hour into the meeting when Hulsey began questioning the commissioner about his attendance at commission meetings. Ashmon left the podium and faced off in a shouting match with Hulsey in front of the room.

Ashmon grabbed a folder of papers from Hulsey’s hands, tore them in two and threw them to the floor. Ashmon told the Douglas County Sentinel the next day that he did grab the papers, but denied making any physical contact with Hulsey,

At one point, a county deputy stepped between the two men and asked them to allow each other to talk. However, another shouting match quickly erupted, and the church pastor asked county officials about 6:50 p.m. to stop the meeting.

Hulsey said he went to the meeting to ask Ashmon to resign because he felt the commissioner had missed too many meetings to do an effective job. He was attempting to read a list of meetings that Ashmon had missed when the confrontation began.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hulsey told the Sentinel the next day. “It was a public meeting and I was asking a simple question. He got hostile and went ballistic.”

Ashmon claimed on the day after the meeting that Hulsey was upset over decisions that Ashmon had made in trying to enforce codes and waging a cleanup campaign. Hulsey denied this allegation.

Ashmon issued an apology to the Sentinel the day after the incident, saying, “I can promise that this will never happen again. I have no excuse. That was not me.” He gave a similar apology at the May 5 Board of Commissioners meeting.