photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A worker can be seen retrieving supplies from a vehicle near the entrance to the city-sanctioned homeless campsite on Thursday, July 13, 2023.

A Lawrence man has been charged with felony domestic battery and other crimes after police say he put a woman in a headlock on Thursday while staying at the city’s campsite for people experiencing homelessness.

The man, Devan Malikk Sam, 23, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one felony count of aggravated domestic battery, one felony count of possession of methamphetamine, one misdemeanor count of theft and one misdemeanor count of assault, according to charging documents.

Lawrence police spokeswoman Laura McCabe said the woman came to the camp in North Lawrence sometime before 3 p.m. Thursday to retrieve belongings from her tent. The woman asked a city worker at the camp to check her tent to make sure it was unoccupied, McCabe said, and the worker then escorted her to the empty tent and left to get her a bottle of water.

McCabe said that upon returning, the worker saw a man performing a “headlock” on the woman and yelled at the man to stop. At that point, McCabe said, the man “turned his aggression toward (the city worker) verbally” and then fled to the north when another city worker intervened.

Officers arrived at the scene at around 3 p.m. and were able to locate the man in the woods north of the camp, McCabe said. He was taken into custody without further incident.

McCabe said that both the man and the woman had signed agreements with the city prior to the incident to stay at the sanctioned campsite, but that the man was given a trespass order after the incident and is permanently banned from returning to the site.

Little information was available in charging documents about the other allegations against Sam; the documents do say that he is accused of stealing an amount of money less than $1,500.

Sam was appointed defense attorney Michael Clarke during his first appearance in court on Friday and is being held on a $2,500 cash or surety bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on July 25.