Ingomar Man Charged In Hampton Twp. Wedding Reception Brawl

HAMPTON TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- On Saturday, Sept. 8, at the Hampton Township Community Center, where Erika Gehry and Glenn Welsh held their wedding reception, all hell broke loose.

"A fight at a wedding in Pittsburgh? Come on now," said defense attorney John Linkosky. "I'll bet if you picked 10 random people off the street, nine of them have been at a wedding where there's been a fight."

Call it a ruckus, a rumpus, a melee, a donnybrook or a free-for-all brawl.

The criminal complaint reports an arriving officer observed at least "10 to 15 wedding guests wailing on each other. Parents were running with their children outside and the children were crying."

Men were fighting in the lobby. One of them, Joshua Chojnicki, had a "laceration to his forehead," according to the criminal complaint.

Onlookers identified 47-year-old Jason Michael Davies, of Ingomar, as the catalyst of the fight.

Witnesses stated that Davies "picked up a pitcher of beer and smashed it off the forehead" of Chojnicki of Upper St. Clair, the criminal complaint reports.

But Davies' attorney says his client was sitting at a table watching the fight when police got there.

"Mr. Davies had no blood on him, he didn't have any torn clothing, he wasn't overheated, he wasn't in a fight," said Linkosky.

Police describe the crowd as very intoxicated.

And according to the criminal complaint, cleaning people told officers that at one point people were jumping off tables and hitting each other with chairs, hands and feet.

The Hampton Township Municipal Manager Christopher Lochner told KDKA's Mary Robb Jackson that because the incident is a criminal investigation, he's limited in what he can say.

But he confirms that the clean-up costs and damages to the center are still being totaled.

Davies is the only one charged. He's facing counts of simple and aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He's out on bond.

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