A transient from Louisiana was arrested Tuesday after a 68-year-old Odessa man told officers the man attacked him in a Whataburger parking lot and Odessa Mayor Javier Joven confirmed his account of the incident.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, officers received a 911 call shortly after 9 a.m. about a man with a knife at the Whataburger on East Eighth Street. When an officer arrived, he saw Christopher Henderson, 37, running in the parking lot and stopped him.
Henderson told the officer an “old man” had swung at him and he swung back.
The report details that when the officer spoke with the other man he explained Henderson called out to him after he’d seen Henderson screaming. The man said when he walked over to him, Henderson told him to swing at him and when he refused, Henderson hit him in the face, knocking him down. When he stood up, Henderson hit and knocked him down again.
Joven told officers he saw Henderson punch the alleged victim twice and run away, while saying he was the victim, the report stated.
Henderson was arrested on suspicion of injury to an elderly person, a Class 3 felony. As of Wednesday afternoon, he remained in the Ector County jail on a $15,000 surety bond.
