The person who tackled comic Dave Chappelle onstage two years in the past has sued the Hollywood Bowl and its safety staff, alleging negligent safety and battery.
Isaiah Lee, who pleaded no contest to fees referring to the 2022 incident and was sentenced to jail due to it, alleged in a civil lawsuit that safety guards employed on the venue for the “Dave Chappelle and Pals” occasion pulled Lee off of Chappelle and commenced beating him ruthlessly, spitting on him and dislocating his arm deliberately.
In a grievance filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket on Friday — precisely two years after the incident — the 25-year-old, who identifies as bisexual and has skilled homelessness, mentioned he tackled Chappelle after “The Dreamer” star “unleashed a barrage of homophobic and transphobic jokes” and joked about homelessness in the course of the inaugural Netflix Is a Joke comedy competition. The grievance, obtained Monday by The Instances, mentioned Lee “turned upset by the discriminatory nature of the comic’s jokes and rushed the stage in protest because the present ended.”
“As an alternative of intervening to guard Lee, [the defendants] allowed members of the comic’s entourage, inspired by the comic, to beat Lee,” the lawsuit mentioned. The grievance additionally mentioned {that a} knife fell out of Lee’s pocket nicely after the altercation was underway and that its presence “didn’t justify the pressure” used towards him.
Jonathan D. Evans, Lee’s lawyer, argued that the Hollywood Bowl and the unidentified “Doe” safety corporations have been conscious of Chappelle’s historical past of constructing offensive jokes that concentrate on the LGBTQ+ group, in addition to his “propensity for making discriminatory remarks,” however “took no measures to forestall or mitigate the potential hurt brought on by such offensive materials.” The firebrand comedian, who will not be listed as a defendant in Lee’s lawsuit, made headlines for months forward of the incident due to jokes he made in his 2021 Netflix particular “The Nearer,” which resulted in an worker walkout for the streaming big and broad criticism of Chappelle’s work.
“We can not touch upon ongoing authorized issues,” a spokesperson for the Hollywood Bowl mentioned Monday in an announcement to The Instances. “Nonetheless, the security and safety of our viewers and artists are of the utmost significance to the Hollywood Bowl. Safety procedures are up to date often to offer the most secure attainable atmosphere for individuals who attend and carry out on the Bowl.”
A spokesperson for Chappelle didn’t instantly reply Monday to The Instances’ request for remark.
Any firm the Bowl may contract with for safety couldn’t be contacted for remark because of lack of identification.
Lee’s assault occurred solely months after Will Smith slapped comic Chris Rock on reside tv on the 94th Academy Awards, and violence reaching onstage was one in every of many points regarding reside performers on the time.
In keeping with earlier reporting, Lee emerged from the Bowl viewers on Could 3, 2022, and appeared to decrease his head and cost Chappelle, knocking the Emmy-winning actor backward. Lee then fled to the again of the stage, the place he was apprehended by safety and sustained minor accidents. Chappelle, who was not harm, later made quips about Lee and the incident and how the occasions performed out.
Lee pleaded no contest to at least one cost of misdemeanor battery and one cost of coming into a restricted space throughout a reside occasion and was sentenced in December 2022 to just about 9 months in county jail. He accomplished his sentence and is at present in a transitional dwelling facility, his lawyer confirmed Monday to The Instances.
Within the lawsuit, Evans argued that the safety firm employed by the Bowl “had an obligation to train due care” within the efficiency of its safety providers and didn’t moderately carry out them, ensuing within the accidents suffered by Lee.
As an alternative of detaining or arresting Lee utilizing an affordable quantity of pressure or intervening to guard him from the beating, the safety firm “allowed members of the comic’s entourage, inspired by the comic, to beat Lee senselessly,” the grievance mentioned. Workers of the safety firm “joined within the beating” and “took no motion to forestall it the assault,” the doc mentioned.
“As a direct and proximate results of the above-mentioned conduct of and omissions by Defendants … [Lee] was positioned in nice worry for his bodily nicely being, and has suffered and continues to endure excessive psychological and bodily ache, struggling, anguish, fright, nervousness, anxiousness, grief, shock, humiliation, indignity, embarrassment, and apprehension, all to his harm in a sum to be decided at trial,” the grievance mentioned.
The submitting additionally mentioned that Lee “was positioned in nice worry for his bodily nicely being, suffered and continues to endure excessive psychological and bodily ache, anxiousness, humiliation and apprehension, amongst different points. He has since skilled a big lack of enjoyment of life and his accidents required rapid surgical procedure, it mentioned, and he can not absolutely use his shoulder or interact in sure bodily actions that he often did earlier than the incident.
Lee is in search of a judgment towards the defendants in a jury trial, as nicely an unspecified quantity in damages, protection of his medical and associated bills, authorized charges and additional aid, the go well with mentioned.
“He’s not after a set greenback quantity. He simply needs the safety firm or whoever else was beating him, twisting his arm out of socket, and spitting on him to reply for going overboard,” Evans mentioned Monday in an e-mail to The Instances. “He ought to have been detained, and brought into custody. That’s it. What the safety guards did to him and allowed others to do him goes past the scope of what’s acceptable.”
