A La Pine man was shot early Sunday morning after trying to help a woman who was being assaulted by a friend outside a La Pine tavern, according to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. 

Jonathon James Arnold entered Vic’s Tavern in La Pine just after midnight Sunday with a single gunshot wound to the buttock, according to the sheriff’s office. A tavern employee called 911. La Pine Fire Department paramedics treated Arnold,  who was taken to St. Charles Bend with a non-life-threatening injury. 

When police arrived, they found Cheyenne Eades Wilson, 43, of Marcola, being held nearby by two citizens who had learned of the shooting, according to police. A handgun was located nearby.

According to victim and witness statements, Wilson and an unidentified woman he was friends with were walking away from Vic’s Tavern when Wilson allegedly assaulted the 34-year-old woman. Arnold, 37, heard the woman yelling for help from his nearby home and contacted her on U.S. Highway 97 near Burgess Road to check her welfare, according to the sheriff’s office. Arnold was trying to keep Wilson away from the woman and himself when Wilson displayed a handgun, police said. Wilson allegedly fired the gun at Arnold as he was trying to get away.

Wilson was arrested and lodged in the Deschutes County jail on suspicion of second-degree assault, fourth-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, menacing and unlawful possession of a firearm.