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ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. — Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects 6%-11% of all military members returning from combat in Afghanistan, according to HealMyPTSD.com.
Anthony McFarlane, 22, served in one of Afghanistan’s deadliest war zones. He’s been home for about a year and a half – and has been diagnosed with PTSD.
“When it comes to PTSD,” McFarlane says, “it’s kind of hard for me to come up with some kind of perspective. You have to have gone through it in order to have any kind of understanding,”
He claims it kicked in when he stabbed Adam Laws, 30, during a scuffle in Otsego in January.
McFarlane now faces an attempted murder charge.
Court documents show that McFarlane and three of his friends that were present told police that Laws instigated the altercation.
McFarlane’s girlfriend told police that Laws had approached her and McFarlane a few hours before while the two had a disagreement outside.
FOX 17 has obtained a DVD copy of Laws’ testimony to police, given a week after the incident.
In it, Laws paints McFarlane as the protagonist in the whole scenario.
“I asked her if she was alright,” Laws says in the video, when asked about the encounter between McFarlane and his girlfriend. “She said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I started walking away. He let me get two or three steps away when he goes, ‘I don’t (expletive) appreciate that. I feel disrespected.'”
Laws says McFarlane escalated the second encounter too.
“This little jerk steps out in front of me, does like a half-pivot step,” Laws told police. “He’s got one foot planted and he swings his body in front of me and goes like this on my chest and goes, ‘Remember me?'”
“I grab his collar right here and I pull him out of my way. As soon as I did that, he popped me in the stomach twice. At first, I thought he just punched me. I didn’t think he cut me. I looked at him. He looked at me. He didn’t do anything else.”
“I get to the corner of the building, I feel something warm on my stomach. And I turn around and go, ‘Did you (expletive) stab me, man? You (expletive) stabbed me?’ And he goes like this with his cigarette and goes, ‘Self defense.'”
Laws stayed in the hospital until February 4. A toxicology report found positive tests for both alcohol and marijuana in his system.
FOX 17 looked into Laws’ criminal record – and it’s lengthy. It included charges of DUI, marijuana possession, and domestic violence.
Aside from the charges in this case, McFarlane’s record is clean.
He’ll appear back in court in a few weeks.
Related articles
- Returning Local Soldier Charged with Attempted Murder (fox17online.com)
