Former child actor Brian Bonsall, now 28, last made headlines in April, 2007 when he was arrested at home in Boulder, Colorado for a domestic abuse incident in which his girlfriend alleged he put her in a chokehold. Bonsall is best known as the little kid brought in to try and make Family Ties cuter in its last three seasons. He went on to star as Patrick Swayze’s son in 1993’s Fatherhood and in the Disney movie Blank Check in 1994. Bonsall had some minor roles after that, most notably as the son of Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but eventually retired from acting to attend high school in Boulder and start a punk band.

Now Bonsall has been arrested again, this time for supposedly smashing his best friend in the face with a broken stool while in a drunken stupor. He was wanted by police in Boulder for missing a court date for that earlier case and failing to meet the terms of his probation. The most notable thing about this story is how bad Bonsall looks. In his 2007 mug shot he was sporting Dracula-style dual lip piercings and a tattoo on the the side of his neck. In this latest mug shot he has a neck full of bad tattoos with a giant butterfly in the center. It even looks like he has some kind of phallus on the left side.

Brian really clocked his friend with the broken stool, and the guy was suffering a concussion and had to be taken to the hospital. The friend isn’t talking, though, and told reporters “I’m not big with the media, and he’s my best friend.”

Bonsall, who most notably starred as Michael J. Fox’s little brother Andy Keaton on the 1980s TV series “Family Ties,” lived in Boulder for several years — graduating from Boulder High in 2000 — before leaving town and skipping a court hearing in 2008. Bonsall also starred in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the 1990s.

Police caught up with him about 2:30 a.m. Saturday at his friend’s home at 1121 11th St. in Boulder. According to an arrest report, officers had been called to the apartment three times that night about “fighting in one of the upstairs units” before they arrested Bonsall on suspicion of hitting his friend, Micheal Trujillo, 26, in the face with a part from a broken stool.

Trujillo told officers that he and Bonsall were arguing when Bonsall picked up a stool, broke it over a stair railing and hit him five to six times in the face. Neighbors reported hearing the fight, and one woman said she saw Bonsall apparently choking Trujillo in the hallway, according to police.

When paramedics arrived at the scene, they stabilized Trujillo using a backboard and a neck brace and took him to Boulder Community Hospital. Trujillo, when reached at home Monday, told the Camera that he’s recovering from a concussion and didn’t want to comment about what happened.

“I’m not big with the media, and he’s my best friend,” Trujillo said.

Bonsall told investigators that both he and Trujillo had been drinking “a lot” that night, and he didn’t remember what happened.

“Bonsall then said that he and Trujillo both are bipolar and like drugs,” according to the report. “Bonsall said that he takes a lot of drugs and sometimes those drugs make him forget things.”

Bonsall has had numerous run-ins with authorities in Boulder, including an arrest in 2004 for drunken driving and the 2007 arrest for assaulting his girlfriend.

In the 2007 case, police said he poured alcohol in his girlfriend’s face as she slept and threw her into a bed when she tried to leave their apartment. He pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and was sentenced to two years of probation.

Authorities suspected he violated the conditions of his probation in 2008 — by failing to pay for domestic-violence classes, missing daily breath tests and submitting a positive breath test — and a probation officer was planning to recommend at a court hearing that Bonsall be sentenced to 60 days of work release. Bonsall never showed up for that hearing, and the former child star had been wanted by Boulder police ever since.

[From ColoradoDaily via Fark]

Early last year most of the cast of Family Ties reunited for an appearance on The Today Show to promote creator/producer Gary David Goldberg’s new autobiography. Bonsall wasn’t there, though, and his character wasn’t even mentioned. What were they going to say? “Remember that annoying kid that kind of heralded the end of the show? Yeah, he became an abusive meth addict.”

Bonsall’s TV mom Meredith Baxter told magazine The Advocate last week that she was gay. People are inevitably making the joke “Give the kid a break, he just found out his mom is a lesbian.” This kid’s problems started way before that. Those neck tattoos just sealed his fate though, right?

Bonsall’s mug shots via Access Hollywood