Atwater man arrested after woman beaten with bar stool, police say

A 23-year-old Atwater man was arrested Thursday after police said he held his girlfriend against her will, choked her and beat her with a bar stool.

The victim, a 21-year-old woman, was examined by paramedics, but did not go to the hospital. Her injuries were not life-threatening, Lt. Samuel Joseph told the Sun-Star.

Julian I. Lopez was booked into the Merced County jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant and false imprisonment. He still was in custody Friday on $100,000 bail, according to booking records.

Police responded at 5:25 p.m. Thursday to a home on Vann Terrace after receiving a report that Lopez had imprisoned the woman in the home for several hours, officers said.

Investigators said Lopez choked the woman and attacked her with a bar stool, striking her multiple times in the upper body.

Joseph said it was unclear exactly what sparked the violence, describing it as “some type of domestic dispute.”

“He appears to have a pattern of criminal activity over the years,” Joseph said.

Lopez’s criminal history includes convictions on possession of stolen property, fighting and trespassing. He was sentenced to eight months in prison in 2013 on a car burglary conviction, jail records show.

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 2:37 PM with the headline "Atwater man arrested after woman beaten with bar stool, police say."