Flashlight assault gets Gaithersburg man an attempted murder charge

A Gaithersburg woman was hospitalized early Sunday after an argument with her boyfriend where he allegedly beat her in the head with a flashlight, according to court documents.

Lenin Enrique Martinez, 19, of the 100 block of Sloop Court in Gaithersburg, was charged with attempted second-degree murder and first- and second-degree assault, according to police charging documents filed in Montgomery County District Court.

Police arrived at 12:38 a.m. at the 600 block of Coral Reef Drive in south Gaithersburg, near Muddy Branch Road, for the report of shots fired, but instead found a man with a bloody shirt running from a home with two people chasing him, the documents state.

They also found a nearly unconscious woman lying nearby in a pool of blood, the documents state.

After police gave chase, the man stopped and dropped a metal flashlight, and reportedly later said to an arresting officer that he hoped she dies, the documents state.

The woman was taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, according to a police statement. Her condition was unavailable Tuesday, but she had non-life-threatening injuries, Gaithersburg police spokeswoman Elena Ingram said Monday.

The woman identified her attacker as her boyfriend, and said their confrontation started over his drinking at a wedding reception they attended earlier in the evening, according to the charging documents.

He reportedly punched her several times on the way to her home, and he began striking her with the flashlight when they arrived at her place and she told him to leave, the documents state.

As of Tuesday morning, Martinez was being held at the Montgomery County Detention Center in Rockville in lieu of $1 million bond, a jail representative said.