Beating leads to felony battery, assault charges

Three Post Falls men accused of beating a man at a riverside park and threatening him with a knife, face felony battery and assault charges as they wait for their next hearing in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court.

Kevin D. Shaw, 20, faces charges of aggravated battery, criminal conspiracy and use of a deadly weapon. The felonies carry a maximum penalty of 15 years. Dyllen Wegner, 22 faces the same charges and Tristan Ryser, 22, faces an additional charge of aggravated assault, with a maximum penalty of 5 years.

Shaw posted a $10,000 bond and was released from the Kootenai County Jail while Wegner and Ryser remain in custody.

Prosecutors at a Wednesday hearing asked for $75,000 bond but Judge Robert Caldwell, after learning that all three defendants are from North Idaho with strong ties to the area, lowered bond to $10,000 and issued no-contact orders All three defendants will have preliminary hearings within three weeks.

The men are accused of beating 24-year-old Creighton J. Walter Sunday at Q’emiln Park. According to a police report the men invited Walter on a hike in the afternoon and punched him in the face as he was seated on a log along a park trail. Walter fell onto the ground and the men continued to kick and punch him.

The men left Walter behind, but he followed them because he didn’t know how to get out of the park, Post Falls police said.

“When they noticed him, they came back towards him and Tristen then pulled a knife and said, ‘Don’t move or I’ll stab you,’” according to a police report.

Walter said he thought the men would kill him if he proceeded.

Walter suffered a swollen right eye and nose, his right cheek was cut open and he had abrasions on his chin and left cheek, police said. After the men — along with the woman they were with — left, Creighton wandered through the park yelling for help. A group of hikers led him out of the park, police said.

Witnesses said the men and woman left the park in a Black Dodge pickup. Walter later picked the men out of a photograph lineup, and the three men were arrested.