A 27-year-old man was taken into custody after a wild fight went viral on social media with a 63- year-old man over movie theater seats in Pompano Beach, the Broward Sheriff’s Office announced Friday.
Jesse Montez Thorton II, 27, faces one count of aggravated battery with great bodily harm. “BSO detectives worked this case for months,” BSO spokeswoman Claudinne Caro said in a news release. “The video and information about this callous attack received national and international media attention and generated leads, including an anonymous tip through Broward Crime Stoppers.”
Caro said detectives identified Thorton as the suspect in the attack and he was taken into custody Thursday with assistance from Fort Lauderdale police. As of Friday morning, Thorton was being held at the Broward County Main Jail in lieu of a $250,000 bond.
As we previously reported, a 63-year-old man was brutally attacked inside a movie theater after he arrived with his wife for a screening of the new “Insidious” movie and had purchased seats in advance, but when he arrived, another couple was sitting in his seats. Now in a new interview with NBC Miami the victim is speaking out about the incident. “This guy just kept staring at me instead of getting up,” the victim explained to NBC6. “I said to the people at this point, who didn’t apologize or say thank you, I said ‘you guys can just keep the seats.’ As I’m walking away, he said ‘go run to your wife little boy.’ So I turned around and I said ‘you know I’m not the one who’s being a little boy, you took my seats and you didn’t apologize or you didn’t say thank you and I let you keep them.’”
That’s when the victim explained how the man just attacked him. “He jumped up, he wanted to fight me, he backed me up, I fell over the stairs and as soon as I fell down the stairs, it was like a boxer being against the ropes, this guy just went to town on me,” the victim said. The victim said witnesses and his wife tried to stop the man, but everything happened so quick. “I couldn’t even get a defensive shot in,” he said. “It happened so fast, he basically sucker-punched me is what he did.”
The 63-year-old, who is a disabled veteran, suffered a broken nose and had to get stitches at a local hospital. “I didnt think anybody would be stupid enough to actually start a fight like that in the movies,” the victim said.
