Officers with the Charleston Police Department responded to the home of his ex girlfriend on James Island around 1 a.m. Sunday morning in connection to a physical disturbance call. Arnold, wearing jeans when police arrived, told officers that he had gone over unannounced to the house, where the girlfriend’s family also lives. He intended to surprise her by scaring her to “lighten the mood”, according to the police report, and hid in the shower in the modified garage apartment his ex lives in “without permission.” She arrived home just before midnight Saturday, when he said she left the apartment and he emerged. When she came back in, he scared her and she pushed him, the report states.
Police spoke with the victim, who told them that she had gotten home and planned on going into the main house for dinner when she noticed an unknown man approaching her. She recognized a pair of her own black biker shorts covering the lower part of his face and her tan baseball cap on his head. He wore these in addition to allegedly holding a kitchen knife, wearing eyeglasses, a grey sweatshirt, and nothing else. His underwear was later discovered in the shower by officers, according to the report.
The victim told police that Arnold held the knife up towards the side of her head when she screamed and tried pushing him away “in imminent fear for her life and the possibility of being raped.” Arnold then allegedly pushed her towards the door and imitated slicing her throat by moving the knife across her neck without breaking the skin. The victim then said he threw the knife on the floor and choked her with his left hand, applying enough pressure to make it difficult for her to breathe and giving her “foggy” vision. It was then when she was able to remove the shorts from her assailants’ head and discover it was her off-and-on boyfriend Jackson Arnold, according to the report.
She said she asked him what he was doing and he told her it was a prank and that he wanted to talk to her, according to police. They both sat on the victim’s bed as she remained calm to avoid any further altercation, the report states, and Arnold told her she should go let her mom know she is okay since he thought she would have heard the commotion.
The victim walked out of the apartment, ran into the main house, and asked her family to call 911.
Police said that at no point during Arnold and the victim’s relationship did he ever reside at the home, have a key, or was freely able to come and go as he pleased. According to the report, a side door to the house had a lock that didn’t work correctly, but police said they did not know how he gained entry. Arnold’s car was also parked “several hundred feet away” from the house, and that he left his cell phone at his home, potentially because he shared his location with the victim using the Life360 app, according to the police report. Officers were unable to locate the kitchen knife Arnold was alleged to wield.
Arnold was booked at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center just after 7 a.m. Sunday. Bond details were not immediately available. He is due to make his first appearance in court in June, according to case details.
