By Denise 
Lockwood
A 23-year-old West Bend man was charged with felonies after he allegedly fought with with police after they pulled him over for driving erratically, according to a criminal complaint.
Christian Nelson was charged with escape, disorderly conduct, resisting an officer causing substantial bodily harm to an officer, resisting an officer causing a soft tissue injury to an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a controlled substance by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office on Friday.
If convicted of all charges, Nelson faces up to 19 years, four months in prison and fines up to $36,100.
According to the criminal complaint, an officer with the Caledonia police department saw Nelson driving erratically and conducted a traffic stop at 3:34 a.m. Thursday on Four Mile Road at Highway 31. Nelson told the officer that he “took a bunch of LSD.” While the officer patted Nelson down, he found a folding knife and a type of pipe people often use for smoking marijuana.
Placing Nelson under arrest, the officer handcuffed Nelson and put him in the back of his squad car. However, Nelson had “worked his hands from behind his back to the front of his body.”
The officer called for back-up so that the handcuffs could be repositioned. While the officer was repositioning Nelson’s handcuffs, one of his hands was free. Nelson pulled his arm away and struck the officer with his elbow. Putting Nelson on the ground and ordering him to stop fighting, the officer feared Nelson might use his free hand, which still had a handcuff on it, as a weapon and a second officer tried to help subdue Nelson. But he was able to get on his feet and run toward his car.
Both officers used their tasers on Nelson, but the tasers didn’t have any affect on him and he started to run away. But then he turned toward the officers and got into a fighting stance. One of the officers knocked Nelson to the ground while he kicked and elbowed the officer.
A third officer had to help put handcuffs on him.
During the altercation, one of the officers scraped his knee, had a cut on his right hand and had a blood blister on his left hand. The other officer needed stitches on his hand.
Police found blotter paper in Nelson’s car, which tested positive for LSD.
Racine County Court Commissioner Alice A. Rudebusch set Nelson’s bail for $3,000. His preliminary hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. Dec. 5.