A Lake Station man was charged in federal court on Monday with two counts of resisting and two counts of assault after the National Park Service (NPS) said that he attacked two rangers on Saturday at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Dunewood Campground in Beverly Shores.

Charged was Joshua Don Young, 27.

According to an affidavit filed by the NPS with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, two rangers, Anthony Papesh and Jennifer Jackson, were dispatched to the Dunewood Campground in response to a complaint of unregistered guests at three camp sites. They were unable to find those guests but in passing Mather Site No. 20 they observed a beer can on a picnic table, the NPS stated. Papesh and Jackson stopped and made contact with Young, who admitted knowing that the campground was closed to alcohol, the NPS said. Young advised the ranger that that can was the only alcohol at the site, but while he went to empty the can another person at the site, at the rangers’ request, opened a cooler to reveal a six-pack of beer, the NPS said.

At this point Young became “agitated” and told the rangers that he would neither empty the can nor leave the campground, the NPS said. Young then approached Papesh and tossed in his face the contents of a dustpan containing cold campfire ashes, the NPS said.

Jackson immediately deployed her baton and struck Young once on the left calf, the NPS said, but Young grabbed it and struck Jackson on the left side of her skull, lacerating her scalp. Young then struck Papesh on the top of his head, the NPS said, also lacerating his scalp.

Jackson, whom the blow to the skull had left briefly “dazed,” tried spraying Young in the face with pepper spray but it had “no visible effect,” the NPS said, so she removed her sidearm and ordered Young and everyone at the site to lie on the ground. Young instead grabbed a 2-year-old boy who was at the site and used the child as “a shield,” the NPS said, then walked away from the camp site in the direction of a restroom facility.

Papesh and Jackson followed Young at a safe distance and were joined by officers from the Beverly Shores Police Department, the Law Enforcement Division of the Department of Natural Resources, and the Porter County Sheriff’s Police, who together were able to take Young to the ground, cuff his hands, and place him in custody, the NPS said.

Jackson received four staples to her scalp and Papesh seven when they were subsequently treated at St. Anthony Memorial Health Center in Michigan City, the NPS said.

Posted 5/6/2008