A Cloquet Man Has Been Charged With First Degree Manslaughter

Joel Jay Ammesmaki who is 58 years old has been charged with first degree manslaughter after an altercation happened at his apartment at the Veteran’s Housing Complex in Cloquet. According to the criminal complaint Fond du Lac Tribal Police arrived at Ammesmaki's apartment after he called the police and reported that he had gotten into a fight with a man in his apartment and wanted him removed.

When officers arrived on the scene they noticed Ammesmaki standing near a couch and found a man laying on the floor face up who was unresponsive and bleeding from his nostrils.  Paramedics attempted to revive the man who had his eyes partially open and not breathing, but told officers that the male was deceased.

According to FOX21 while paramedics were attending to the male who passed away Ammesmaki became distraught and said: "It wasn’t supposed to go this way." He also told authorities that the man had punched him in the face while they were fighting.

According to a complaint filed by the Fond du Lac Tribal Police Ammesmaki had told them that he and the man were drinking together in his apartment watching a football game and a movie when the man called him a name of another man that lives in the housing complex then swung at Ammesmaki but did not hit hit him.

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Ammesmaki then said that he punched the man twice when he fell to the floor and he thought he was sleeping. Security footage from the apartment building shows Ammesmaki and the male entered his apartment at 12:34 am and then showed Ammesmaki leave his apartment a total of three separate times before the officers arrived at 2:11am. Nobody else was seen going in or out of the apartment during that time. He is due back in court on September 27.

Stories like this are so tragic and seem to happen far to regularly when someone gets punched and falls to the ground suffering a fatal injury. But at this point it is not known what caused the man to pass away, whether it was from the punches or of he hit his head causing the fatality.