Man charged with assault for biting off another man's thumb

police lights (FOX 9)

A 24-year-old North Kitsap man was charged with assault after biting off another man’s thumb during a fight that started as a group of friends were heading to a bar.

The victim, 27, wrote in a statement included in Kitsap County Superior Court charging documents that he and the suspect were not getting along in the lead-up to the fight the night of Sept. 2, the Kitsap Sun reported.

The victim said the suspect attacked him after he criticized him for being lazy before going into the bar. While on the ground, the victim said he tried to push the man’s face away but his left thumb went into the suspect’s mouth and he bite down.

The suspect "continued to bite my thumb until he bit off the end," the victim wrote. Medics collected the thumb from the roadway and they went to the hospital.

The suspect told deputies that the victim turned the verbal argument into a fight by kicking him in the chest and that he "did not bite down very hard," a deputy wrote.

The victim had surgery but lost function from the first knuckle and permanently lost the tip of his thumb. The suspect was charged Tuesday with second-degree assault.

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