A city cop tussled with a naked homeless man reportedly looking for a fight outside the Cheyenne Police Department on Monday before arresting him.
The officer was dispatched to a call for assistance outside the Cheyenne Public Safety Center for reports of a “white male, walking on the sidewalk completely nude and exposing himself,” according to an affidavit of probable cause filed Tuesday in Laramie County Circuit Court.
The suspect, Jason Hellings, is described as a homeless man with brown hair and blue eyes, standing about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds. He was born in 1981.
When the police officer arrived, he found Hellings naked, standing in a “bladed off stance with his hands raised in a fighting fashion,” the affidavit says.
The officer said he instructed Hellings to place his hands behind his back, but the man refused, instead resisting the officer. He reportedly balled up, making it difficult for officers to arrest the naked man.
“Officers attempted to reposition to a more advantageous position,” says the affidavit.
At one point during the scuffle, Hellings got to his feet and attempted to punch the policeman in the torso, then struck him in the left arm to break free.
Then the naked man took off, running from officers, the affidavit says.
“Hellings was eventually apprehended, but continued to resist arrest until handcuffs were fully applied,” the document says.
Hellings made his first court appearance Tuesday, where he was charged with causing bodily injury to a peace officer, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
He was also charged with interference with a peace officer, which is a misdemeanor that could tack on an additional year to Hellings' sentence if he is found guilty.
A Violent Backstory
Court records reveal Hellings has a lengthy criminal history with about a dozen complaints filed against him in the last 10 years.
In 2021, he admitted to assaulting a woman he had just met. He told police he picked her up at a truck stop and brought her back to his trailer.
The affidavit says that after they had “consensual sex,” he reportedly saw her rifling through his personal things and he became “extremely angry.”
The victim’s account matches what Hellings said next, which is that he bound her hands with tape and struck her with a metal pipe. She told police she begged him to stop and “she thought she was going to die.”
An ultrasound later confirmed she was about 14 weeks pregnant at the time of the attack.
Criminal charges were ultimately dropped on that case.
A few months later on Aug. 27, 2021, Hellings was charged with pointing a gun at a homeowner after being told to “get the hell off” the other person's porch. The homeowner told police he felt his and his daughter’s lives were in danger.
Court records show the weapon was later revealed to be a CO2 BB gun, but it “had no toy markings or colors to suggest it was a toy.”
Historically, Hellings has been convicted on multiple occasions for crimes such as interference, possession of a controlled substance, threatening to inflict injury and interference with a peace officer, criminal trespass, and battery.
The affidavits don’t say if Hellings was fully clothed or not during the other alleged incidents.
He is being held at the Laramie County Detention Center. He will next appear for a preliminary hearing within 10 days to determine if there is enough evidence to move the case to District Court.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
