Man arrested in standoff is accused of beating woman

A 45-year-old Belgium man who was arrested after an early morning standoff at his home on Main Street last week was charged Monday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with beating a woman who told authorities he threatened to shoot her.

Special response teams from Ozaukee and Washington counties assisted in the arrest of Bart J. Johnson at 6:45 a.m. Friday, Jan. 29, after a nearly four-hour standoff.

Johnson, who is charged with seven crimes, three of which are felonies, is being held in the county jail in lieu of $20,000 bail.

The day before his arrest, a 46-year-old Glenbeulah woman who described Johnson as her boyfriend said a verbal argument between the two them on the night of Wednesday, Jan. 27, escalated and she told him she wanted to leave.

She said Johnson took her car keys, preventing her from leaving, then choked her, grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into a chair, wall and the floor, before dragging her down a hallway by her hair while calling her names, according to the criminal complaint.

The woman said that at one point she grabbed Johnson’s legs, causing him to fall. He responded by grabbing what she thought was a real handgun, cocking it and threatening to shoot her, the complaint states.

With Johnson unwilling to relinquish her car keys and her cell phone trapped in the bathroom, the woman went to her vehicle and stayed there, without heat, until 8 or 9 a.m. 

Then in an attempt to retrieve her belongings, she said, she went back to Johnson’s house where he again beat her and told her if she went into the bedroom to grab her things he would shoot her. The woman said he placed a gun next to the door of the room, according to the complaint. 

The woman said she left the house and walked to Six Mile Road and asked a resident there for a ride. The man instead went to Johnson’s house and convinced him to give the woman her car keys. The man told authorities that when he was with Johnson earlier in the day he saw him drink 20 mini bottles of Fireball whiskey, the complaint states.

At 10:15 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, authorities called Johnson, who denied pointing a gun at the woman and blamed her for destroying his house, breaking his ribs and knocking out his teeth. He said the two of them got into a fight and punched each other while wearing boxing gloves.

Johnson refused to come out of his house, and because of reports that he was armed, special response team members assembled outside the home at 3 a.m. Friday, Jan. 29. Eventually officers entered the house and one of the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office dogs detained Johnson, Undersheriff Christy Knowles said. 

Inside the house officers found a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition as well as three airsoft pistols, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to the complaint. 

Johnson is charged with felony counts of false imprisonment, substantial battery and failure to comply with officers’ attempting to arrest him, as well as misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and bail jumping.

Johnson is charged with bail jumping because at the time of the incident he was free on bail in connection with a disorderly conduct domestic abuse case. 

During a hearing Monday, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain ordered Johnson to maintain absolute sobriety and not to possess guns or have contact with the woman if released from jail.