Whether to visit casino creates generational friction among three men in Troy bar
By Charles Bolinger
Editor • Three of five men were involved in a dispute in a Troy bar on April 3. The cause? Whether to go to a casino.
According to Troy Police Officer Cody Blackburn, he was dispatched to the Fore-O Golf Lounge on South Main Street for a disturbance in progress.
“Upon arrival, I observed two white males standing outside the establishment,” he wrote. He described what they wore and they were later identified as Dustin R. Sexton, 48, of Marine and Jason A. Schlechte, 51, also of Marine.
“As I walked past the two males, I asked if either of them were involved in the disturbance, in which [one of them] put his hands up and stated he did not touch anyone.”
Sgt. Jessica Callahan and Ofcs. Cody Lucas and Brent Beltz arrived on scene to assist.
Blackburn entered the business but saw no active disturbance, he wrote. He contacted the victim, 22, from Troy. He provided a statement that Blackburn wrote was not verbatim unless indicated by quotation marks.
The 22-year-old said he and his friends sat at the bar top, talking. The discussion was about going to a casino. During the discussion, the victim said three “older guys” sat at a table behind them. One of the older men told the victim not to go to the casino. The 22-year-old told his friends, “Don’t worry about it, that guy’s a loser. We should still go.”
The young man told Blackburn that “I was just calling him a loser as a joke. I wasn’t being super serious but I called him a loser a couple of times.”
After the first mention of being a loser, one of the subjects walked up behind the victim, grabbed him by the neck and “dragged” him away from the bar toward the front door. As he did so, he asked the 22-year-old, “Who the f*** is the loser?”
The younger man said, “He was genuinely grabbing onto my neck and I was like, H*** S**, I can’t f****** breathe.” He added that he did not black out but he had a hard time breathing while in the headlock.
Blackburn wrote that the way the victim demonstrated with his arms, he understood that the suspect put the victim in a headlock from behind.
After some minutes, the suspect released the victim’s neck and the victim returned to his friends to get away from the suspect. Meanwhile, the suspect’s unidentified friends pushed him toward the entrance to keep him separate from the victim. The disturbance ended before police arrived, the younger man told Blackburn, adding that the suspect was an “older guy with grayish, darkish hair.”
Blackburn wrote that he spoke to the bartender on duty who told him she witnessed the altercation while working. She said the suspect walked up behind the victim, wrapped an arm around his neck and began walking backward toward the entrance with him. She added that she did not have access to the bar’s security cameras; only the owner did.
Blackburn and the other officers checked the business interior and exterior but failed to find the suspect, who they believe left the scene. The victim wanted to press charges for aggravated battery.
Blackburn called another witness who sat next to the victim at the bar but had his back turned to him initially. He turned around after hearing a chair hit the floor behind him and saw the suspect with an arm around the victim’s neck. A second witness corroborated the others’ accounts.
Blackburn photographed the victim’s neck at the scene
While he gathered statements inside, Ofc. Lucas contacted Sexton outside the bar. Sexton told Lucks that the suspect’s name was “Jason” but would not say more. Sexton and the other man who originally stood outside when Blackburn arrived claimed they tried to break up the altercation.
The bar’s owner arrived shortly thereafter and showed Blackburn the camera footage, which had no audio component. After watching the footage, Blackburn wrote that he observed Sexton and two other, unidentified men sit at a table separate from the bar. The victim sat at the bar with friends and other people. A suspect in a white shirt from the table approached the victim at the bar and they engaged in a verbal dispute. The man in the white shirt wrapped an arm around the victim’s neck, dragging him away from the bar. He released the victim’s neck and the younger man returned to the bar. Sexton and others tried to de-escalate the situation behind standing between the victim and the suspect.
While the man in the white shirt departed without returning, the camera footage also showed police that Sexton was involved, despite denying it.
Sexton strode up to the victim at the bar and got into another verbal altercation with the victim before Sexton allegedly used both of his hands to push him in the chest, forcing him to lean back over the bar top. Sexton finished by pointing a finger in the younger man’s face before walking away. His clothing on the video matched what he wore on scene.
Callahan talked to the victim and he said he wanted to press charges on Sexton, too. Based on the video footage and the victim’s desires, Blackburn completed a citation for battery and misdemeanor conditions of pre-trial release to issue to Sexton on scene.
However, after finding and citing Sexton, he became very argumentative, interrupting Blackburn during his narration – “I didn’t do a f****** thing. Next time, I’ll kill him.” At that point, Callahan cuffed Sexton and said Sexton would be placed on a felony hold at the Madison County Jail for mob action and battery.
Blackburn searched Sexton’s person, which yielded negative results. Sexton was booked and fingerprinted at the Troy Police Department.
On April 4, Sgt. Callahan contacted the bar to get footage of “Jason” leaving the bar. He was later identified as Schlechte. He was later traced to a black GMC Sierra pickup truck that was seen eastbound on Fitch Street, identified via license plate inquiry.
He called the Troy PD on April 4 to speak with an officer about the incident. Schlechte said he would come to the department on April 5. He arrived just before 6 p.m. and he was immediately placed in handcuffs and taken to an interview room. He was read his rights, which he signed.
Schlechte said he arrived at Fore-O Golf around 10 p.m. on April 3 to hang out with some friends.
He had been playing tic-tac-toe with some friends and drank a beer. He told Blackburn that two “kids” walked in and sat at the bar. One of them talked to the other one about going to a casino. One of the pair disagreed about going while his friend encouraged him to go.
Schlechte told the two that it was not a good idea to venture to a casino late on a Friday night, telling Blackburn he was trying to be nice.
The victim then pointed at Schlechte and said, “Why would I listen to this f******* loser?”
“So I stood up, got behind him and said ‘Who’s the loser?’ He said, ‘You’re a f****** loser.’ So I put him ina headlock, ripped him off his seat and once his feet got to the ground, I let him go.”
Schlechte said the headlock move he used was meant to scare the victim, nothing more.
At that point, the bartender ejected him. He texted his wife to inform her that he was kicked out.
He said he waited outside for his wife to arrive and she drove them home. A friend later told him the police were looking for him, so he called the Troy PD on April 4.
“While I explained the strangulation portion of aggravated battery, Schlecte said, “But I didn’t flex. I’ve been in the Marine Corps. I know how to choke and that wasn’t [it]; I was just pulling him off.” Schlechte said he did not know the victim or any of his friends.
Blackburn booked and fingerprinted Schlechte and he was released, pending felony warrant application.
On April 4, Blackburn and Det. Paul Franklin met at the Madison County Criminal Justice Center in Edwardsville for a probable cause hearing on this case. Blackburn met with Hon. Judge Schroeder in the circuit court, where he signed the necessary paperwork.
Two days later, Madison County Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Kemper denied the aggravated battery and instead advised filing a misdemeanor charge.
Blackburn stopped at the jail to tell Sexton he was being charged with battery. Sexton asked Blackburn if he watched the video and said he only pushed the victim. Blackburn advised Sexton that pushing someone is still considered battery.
He signed his conditions of pre-trial release and he had a court date of April 20 at 9 a.m. Meanwhile, Schlechte was charged with two counts of aggravated battery but he was released upon signing the standard conditions of release.
