A black-belt jiu-jitsu champion from Utah was reportedly arrested for breaking a man’s skull after he was knocked down on the side of the road by force.
40-year-old Nenad Shuput faced arrest in Salt Lake County in the early hours of Sunday, March 10. The charge levied against him is one of aggravated assault, with the victim sustaining significant bodily harm.
Shuput co-owns Gladiator Fight Academy, a martial arts training facility in Salt Lake City. This is where he teaches black-belt jiu-jitsu.
Reports suggest that an eyewitness dialed 911, alerting authorities to a violent altercation unfolding on the SR-201 freeway near 3200 West in Salt Lake City. The witness accounts detail a distressing scene, with a man purportedly assaulting another individual, who lay incapacitated on the ground.
When police arrived on the scene, they saw one guy lying on the ground with blood all over his face. The arrest report said that Shuput was standing close by and that his fists were also bleeding.
After being transported to the Intermountain Medical Center, it was discovered that the sufferer had a broken skull.
When Shuput’s co-owner of the jiu-jitsu school showed up, he told the police that Shuput is a black belt in the Brazilian martial art. Shuput claims that he has always been active, having played basketball in both high school and college.
He began training in Muay Thai when his basketball career ended, eventually moving on to mixed martial arts.
The black-belt’s wife Zivana Shuput is his ‘biggest supporter.’ She gave him the confidence to start his own company so he could teach kids from eight to seventeen about mixed martial arts.
Shutup said: “It has been an amazing journey, I do what I love and I love what I do, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
He said that assisting kids in overcoming their “fear of bullies” is one of his business objectives.
“‘We are running youth classes, helping them with their confidence and overcoming the fear of bullies; working with kids ages 8 to 17.”
Shuput has already written about his childhood in Yugoslavia. He said: “As a child, living in a civil war-torn country, Yugoslavia, I had to move and find refugees in different areas, and kids can be very mean. They bully someone who is malnutrition and looks apart from the locals, so I always wanted to learn how to fight and defend myself.”
Shuput is a father to two children currently. He was advised of his Miranda rights and chose not to speak during his Sunday arrest.
Shuput was taken into custody without being given any kind of bond at Salt Lake County Jail after his detention by a Utah Highway Patrol officer.