Police: Drunk woman arrested after fight with juveniles she believed stole her money

MUNCIE, Ind. (WISH) — A Muncie woman wound up behind bars Saturday after police say she drunkenly fought and injured two juvenile girls she thought stole her money.

Two officers with the Muncie Police Department were called to a home in the 1800 block of South 17th Street after receiving information from dispatch that “a bunch of females were screaming.”

They arrived and found multiple people pointing after a silver truck going northbound on a nearby street. One of the officers followed after the truck while the other stayed on scene.

The 911 caller spoke to the officer and said a woman named Taylor Hammond punched her kids. One of the girls had a swollen and actively bleeding nose, while the other girl said Hammond “punched her in the face and grabbed her by the hair.”

The girls told the officer that Hammond was drunk and she thought they stole money from her.

Investigators caught up to the 30-year-old Hammond, and the two spoke to her about the incident. Court documents say officers immediately noted the smell of alcohol on her. She was also unbalanced and yelling, stating she’d been “jumped.”

She kept getting into their personal space, police say, and when they asked her to step back, she said the officers were “being mean to her.”

She continued to say she had been jumped “bad,” and was eventually taken to a hospital by medics.

The 911 caller later told officers that earlier in the day, she and Hammond went to a liquor store to buy alcohol and then came home. One of her daughters then went to Hammond’s home nearby to cook food.

The woman said it took her daughter a long time to make food, so “someone had to go down (to Hammond’s) to get her.” She told police that Hammond accused the girls of stealing her bag that had money in it, but said Hammond returned sometime later to apologize when she found the money in an alley.

The woman said when the accusations started, Hammond was “screaming and cussing at the kids” through the screen door. She said she confronted Hammond outside, and at some point, one of the girls got between them and then Hammond and the girl “got into it.”

It was unclear when the girl was hit, or when the other daughter was injured. Court documents say the woman’s son also got involved in the fighting to protect his sisters, but he was uninjured.

After arriving at the hospital, police say Hammond became “extremely hostile and rude” to staff. She was “uncooperative” during a CT scan, and later “claimed multiple times that (staff) refused to treat her.”

Police also struggled to handcuff Hammond. When they finally did, documents say she leaned back on her handcuffs and yelled in pain. Officers told her to lean forward “so that it didn’t hurt” but she remained uncooperative. Hammond “refused to walk and dead weighted all of her body onto the ground.”

After being escorted to a jail transport vehicle, Hammond asked officers to help her into the back. Police noted that Hammond “was walking just fine when (they) initially made contact with her.”

She was taken to the Delaware County jail on preliminary charges of battery on a person less than 14 years old and battery causing injury. She wasn’t listed as an inmate as of Tuesday.

The Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office told News 8 the case was currently under review as of Tuesday morning.