Rick Allen, the world’s best known one-armed drummer, was attacked outside a hotel and sustained a head injury after he was tackled to the sidewalk, and a female bystander who intervened was also injured.
Is it just the lighting, or does the suspect appear to have pinpoint pupils?
Florida Man strikes again.
It requires a lot of cowardice to attack a one armed, 59 year old from behind.
I wish Rick all the best and a full recovery.
The lady that tried to help deserves a lot of credit.
I sent this story to my sister who, in college in the early-mid 90’s, was in a punk band called “Rick Allen’s Arm”
That area of town is full of tourists and high end hotels. Back from the water a block or two are lots of 1960s low-rise apartments / condos that turn into weekly AirBnBs during tourist season and now Spring Break*. There are lots of eatery / drinkery joints from basic burgers-n-beer to tres snootay.
And plenty of young men fired up on recreational substances and testosterone. Plus some opportunistic street criminals. Muggings are not common, but stuff left lying on the beach or on outdoor tables tends to “disappear” in grab-n-run events. This moron seems to be the former sort.
* What people call “Spring Break” seems to start about Feb 15th and extend until about June 1st. Not every kid over the age of 10 is off school every week, but some schools somewhere are and the hordes of youth are everywhere around here and throughout the Caribbean.
I feel story for the bystander, but as far as Allen is concerned, what goes around comes around.
Maybe the teen was continuing his father’s search and though he had found his man.
“Hartley allegedly came up from behind Allen and threw his head to the ground, according to a police report reviewed by ABC News.”
Worse, he could have run off with the head and held it for ransom.
He’s ‘Arm Fall Off Man’ not ‘Head Fall Off Man’…
A friend of mine once described him with “he lost his arm in an arm accident.”
Nitpick: Under Florida law, Allen was battered. An assault is a threat of imminent violence; battery is an offensive touching.
This knucklehead attacker is a teen from Ohio who went to a nice Catholic school (St. Ignatious) and is from a very chi-chi suburb outside of Cleveland (Avon).
I noticed on the police report that he’s charged with, among other thing, assault of an elderly or disabled person. I’m sure Allen can hold his own with the best of 'em but it’ll be nice if this kid gets in deeper trouble due to Allen’s disability.
I know nothing of Def Leppard. Is he a very, very bad man?
Are you really suggesting that “Rick Allen was battered in Florida” would have been a more accurate thread title or newspaper headline?
Assault Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
This is not a legal brief, and the technical definition of assault vs battery has been pointed out so many times that you’d have to be living in a village in Papua New Guinea not to know it by now.
Also… happy cake day!
He has a history of spousal abuse.
Florida also has the offenses of Affray and of Riot.
Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine (state.fl.us)
This situation was not Affray and, absent a few more people involved, could not be Riot either. But they could have written some great headlines using those words.
I can’t believe we’ve got this far in the thread without noting that this was an unprovoked attack on an unarmed man.
Back when he had his accident and lost his limb my friends and I joined a card and letter campaign arranged by a local radio station to send him get well messages etc. it was Y100 or WSHE or Zeta4. Can’t recall. But we were really bummed.
More like de-armed, but your point is disarmingly well-presented.
There was also a punk band called “Sandy Duncan’s Glass Eye” (which she didn’t have; she was blind in one eye but that was her real eye).