An elderly man was severely beaten in a Florida cinema after asking a younger couple to move out of the seats that he had previously reserved.
Marc Cohen, 63, had purchased the tickets for the reserved seats at the AMC theater in Pompano Beach, Florida. But when he got to the section, he found Jesse Montez Thorton II, 27, already sitting there, according to the Daily Mail.
In a statement, Broward Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Claudinne Caro said, “When [the victim] and his wife arrived at the movie theater, he noticed an unknown adult male and adult female in his seats. [The victim] politely asked the subject, Jesse Montez Thorton II, to move from their seats. Witnesses said that’s when Thorton became hostile.”
Video of the July 10 attack shows that the man identified as Thorton seemed to immediately get hostile after Cohen asked the couple to vacate the seats.
Cohen stumbled back as the suspect came on hot. Then the younger man immediately began pummeling the elder with repeated haymakers, according to the video.
Bystanders rushed to separate the two, and the man now identified as Thorton quickly left the theater.
Florida moviegoer brutally beaten after asking couple to move out of his VIP seat.
The attacker, Jesse Montez Thorton II, was arrested two months later, and faces one count of aggravated battery with great bodily harm and is in jail in lieu of a $250,000 bond. pic.twitter.com/fcTgRQOL0M
— BoreCure (@CureBore) September 30, 2023
“I just don’t understand people, how they act that way — there’s no civility anymore,” the beating victim told WPLG-TV.
Cohen added that when he asked Thorton to leave the seats, “He said, ‘Go run to your wife, little boy.’ I said, ‘You’re the little boy for acting this way.’”
The legal seat holder said Thorton yelled, “Do you want to fight,” and then started hitting him.
“I was on the stairs and he just kept pounding away at my head, and I couldn’t get him off of me to do that,” Cohen said.
Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Caro said that investigators worked for months to identify the perpetrator.
“BSO detectives worked this case for months,” Caro reported. “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.”
Thorton was taken into custody on Sept. 28 and is being held at the Broward County Main Jail in lieu of a $250,000 bond.
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