I am being charged with assault and battery. The incident happened May 17, 2007. The detective handling the case notified me yesterday that I have a warrant for assault and battery and that I should turn myself in. I am scared to death! I plan on turning myself in on this coming Monday. The incident happened outside of my old residence a neighbor notified me that another neighbor was yelling at my daughter calling her obscenities, and threatening to hit her, I ran outside and approached her at this point I heard heard her calling my daughter a nigge# cunt and saying that she would whoop her azz. I calmly asked the mother what was going on and she continued to yell she went to strike me in my face and I grabbed her hair and punched her in the face like 3 or 4 times then I released her and she again started with the vulgar name calling and stated that she was going to call the police which she did they came out and took a report, and now 2 months later I stand charged with assault and battery this incident occurred in Sterling Heights Michigan. I have since been evicted from the public housing that I was residing in, and I now live in another county. She still resides in the public housing and works in the neighborhood school as a lunch aide which I feel is unfair because of her actions toward my child she should not be allowed to work with African American children. My question I guess is should I be looking for someone to take partial custody of my children for sentencing am I going to do hard time, or will I be able to fight this? I don't have any previous record for any type of crimes. I don't have monies for an attorney is there anything that I can do? Are court appointed lawyers as bad as everyone is making them out to be? I am so scared and this behavior is not of my character, I was just caught totally off of guard and I was defending my child who is still shaken up by the incident. Please help me in figuring this situation out. Thanks in advance.