Police say a 40-year-old man with a history of run-ins with local law enforcement is behind bars again this weekend after stabbing and seriously wounding a bartender at a Tybee Island pizza restaurant.
Billy Ray McCormick Jr. was arrested just before 3:30 a.m. Saturday and charged with aggravated assault and two misdemeanor offenses.
McCormick attacked a Huc-A-Poo’s Bites & Booze employee with a broken bottle in the parking lot as the bar was closing, said Tybee Island Police Chief Bob Bryson. The victim was taken to Memorial University Medical Center and rushed into surgery. Bryson said he is expected to recover and credits responding officers’ use of tourniquets with keeping him alive.
State Department of Corrections and court records show McCormick was released from Savannah’s Coastal Transitional Center in late 2009 after the remainder of a 10-year sentence for forgery and a four-year sentence for aggravated assault were commuted. He’d served just over one year of his sentence for aggravated assault.
In March 2015, Savannah-Chatham police announced they were looking for McCormick on felony charges for allegedly hurting two women on Wilmington Island in separate incidents the previous summer. In one case, he was charged with aggravated battery and, in the other, sodomy and sexual battery. Court records show the sodomy charge was dismissed April 1 and that he was sentenced to 10 years of probation for the aggravated battery charge and two years of probation for the sexual battery charge.
Bryson said one of the two women from the July 2014 incidents was on Tybrisa Street near the beach Friday afternoon when McCormick saw her and allegedly made a comment to her that made her feel uncomfortable. She called 911, but McCormick was gone when police arrived.
The next time they encountered him was when they were called to Huc-A-Poo’s after the bartender suffered serious injuries.
The incidents Friday were unrelated, said Tybee Island Police Detective Sgt. Bertram Whitley, adding that McCormick and the bartender did not know each other.
Apparently McCormick tried to bail without paying his tab, and the bartender followed him into the parking lot. At that point, McCormick, who had two glass bottles in his hands, reportedly smashed one of them on the ground.
McCormick then attacked the bartender with the broken glass, wounding the back of his head as well as his leg, Whitley said.
McCormick ran away and police found him hiding in a bush. He did not surrender quietly, and police drew weapons before taking him into custody, Bryson said.
Details about the extent the arrest struggle were not immediately available.
The investigation is ongoing.
Bryson said he was surprised McMormick was even on probation, given the seriousness of the charges filed against him last year and his criminal history.
“(The bartender) wouldn’t be a victim today if McCormick was still in prison,” Bryson said.