Greenfield Man Threatened Girlfriend With Assault Rifle: Police

GREENFIELD, WI — A Greenfield man has been arrested and charged after authorities say he threatened his live-in girlfriend with an assault rifle in an apparent domestic abuse case.

Christian Brionez, 27, of Greenfield, faces the following charges: battery, criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct - all related to domestic abuse.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County, officers were sent to a home on S. Tuckaway Court in Greenfield at just after 7 a.m. on Feb. 3 on a report of a man with a gun.

Police said they spoke with a woman who said she got home from work around 6:30 a.m. and was about to go to sleep when her live-in boyfriend, identified as Brionez, came into the room, pointing an assault rifle around the room as though he was searching for somebody.

The woman told police Brionez was upset over a relationship issue. According to the criminal complaint, Brionez slapped the woman several times in the face, punched her in the head, and kicked her in the thigh. He also took her cell phone and smashed it against a night stand while telling her that she would not be using it to contact anyone.

According to police, officers in Waukesha pulled the man over in a traffic stop later that day. During the stop, police reported confiscating an ammunition bag from the back seat of his car that contained several assault rifle magazines loaded with ammunition in addition to several loose rounds.

According to the criminal complaint, authorities questioned Brionez, who admitted that he had an assault rifle when he confronted his girlfriend, but that it was not loaded and that he kept the muzzle pointed toward the ground. When police questioned him about any other weapons, he told police they were unloaded, and locked in a gun safe in his apartment.

Police later recovered a Ruger AR-556, and a Ruger P95 pistol, neither of which were loaded, court records showed.

If convicted, Brionez faces up to four-and-a-half years in jail, in addition to any other incarceration time he faces as a result of the crime being a domestic abuse case.