Aside from first-degree assault, Roquan Smith was also charged with third-degree assault, aggravated assault and battery upon an aged person, and simple assault — all as domestic violence offenses. Additional charges include two counts of carrying or using a dangerous weapon with intent, criminal abuse of an elder, and disturbance of the peace by threats. Photo: VIPD

According to court documents, on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, police were dispatched to a residence in Anna’s Retreat after receiving reports of an assault. Responding officers met with a resident who told them they had been in their garden when they saw Roquan Smith come home from work, wearing a yellow polo shirt. He first entered his own apartment before emerging and going upstairs to the unit where his grandmother lived. The neighbor recalled hearing some noise emanating from his grandmother’s apartment, but said it wasn’t very loud. Shortly afterwards, Smith reportedly emerged from the unit, tossed a white plastic bag over the fence, and entered his apartment once more. 

The neighbor went inside their own house and called Smith’s grandmother to check on her, but the call reportedly went straight to voicemail. They told police that they then settled to watch television and work on a puzzle, when someone started banging loudly on the door without responding to a request to identify themselves.

Grandmother found covered in blood

Suspecting it to be Smith’s grandmother based on what they could see from the porch, the neighbor reportedly went around to the front door and opened it to find the elderly woman covered in blood. She reportedly stood on the doorstep for a few moments before collapsing to the floor. 

After calls to 911 proved futile, the neighbor said they ran to another house to ask for help. They told officers that Smith was the only person to have visited his grandmother’s residence that day. 

The injured woman, still on the floor of the neighbor’s residence when the police arrived, bore lacerations and abrasions to the left side of her face.. Her lips and nose were swollen, officers say, and medical personnel at the Schneider Regional Medical Center, where she was taken for treatment. Physicians later found that several of the bones in her face had been fractured, and blood was also welling up behind the elderly woman’s left eye, according to court documents.

Suspect initially locked himself in apartment

Police reported that Smith, who was still in his downstairs apartment when they arrived, initially locked himself in his bedroom when ordered to come outside, before eventually being convinced to do so. He was detained without further incident, after which officers searching the room found a yellow designer polo shirt on the floor and blood spattered across the bottom. Further investigation of the scene revealed a broken knife blade in the grandmother’s apartment, surrounded by a pool of blood and a badly damaged cell phone in the white trash bag Smith had thrown over the fence. 

Smith was transported to the Alexander Farrelly Justice Complex where he was arrested and charged with first-degree assault as a crime of domestic violence, and was remanded into custody to await his first court appearance. 

Meanwhile, shortly after officers had been dispatched to the scene, a second witness turned up at the Mariel C. Newton Command police station. This person, a friend of Smith’s grandmother, said they received a call from the elderly woman, the first in over a year. She was on the line pleading for help, saying that she was on the floor and asking them to call 911. The last thing that was heard before the call cut off, the witness said, was “my grandson.”

Like with the first witness, multiple 911 calls failed, so they decided to walk to the station to make a report. 

Aside from first-degree assault, Smith was also charged with third-degree assault, aggravated assault and battery upon an aged person, and simple assault — all as domestic violence offenses. Additional charges include two counts of carrying or using a dangerous weapon with intent, criminal abuse of an elder, and disturbance of the peace by threats.

$75K bail

In court on Friday, Magistrate Paula Norkaitis found probable cause to uphold all charges against Smith, and set bail at $75,000, which must be posted in full to secure his release. If able to do so, he would be required to remain a minimum of 100 ft away from his grandmother at all times, with only one opportunity to remove his belongings from her address. 

Smith would also have to maintain weekly telephone contact with the probation office, and submit to an evaluation from the health department’s Division of Behavioral Health, Alcoholism and Drug Dependency. The report generated from the evaluation must be submitted by February 29, and Smith would be required to take any medications recommended.

His next court appearance is scheduled for February 16, 2024.