A suspect has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a couple Thursday night following the Elton John concert at Dodger Stadium, according to a spokesperson with the Los Angeles Police Department.
The victims, reported to be in their 60s, were treated at a hospital, and both have been released, authorities said. Their identities and the extent of their injuries have not been disclosed.
The incident occurred after the concert as the parking lot was emptying, authorities said. Video of the attack has been posted on numerous news sites, including TMZ. It shows concertgoers watching from afar as a man in a blue shirt stands over a man who is seen falling backwards onto the asphalt. Another man then seems to restrain the man in the blue shirt.
Speaking to CBS-LA, the man who was attacked described how the assault began, after he said someone punched the side mirror of his car.
“Who hit my mirror?” he remembered asking, and a woman, who took responsibility, then either struck him or tried to strike him before a man stepped up and started punching him.
The victim’s wife said she was in the car at the time and saw in the rearview mirror “a pile of people on top of my husband.” When she tried to help, she said, she felt someone grab her hair, and she was “thrown” to the ground and lost consciousness.
When she came to, the assailants had scattered. She got her husband back into the car and drove to a hospital. They both sustained head injuries, and he suffered a broken ankle and was released on Saturday.
The woman who was attacked also remembered someone who tried to record the assault getting punched and having his phone damaged by the assailants.
Los Angeles police describe the incident of “battery and vandalism” as under investigation. It is the most recent of a series of attacks that have occurred at sporting venues in Southern California over the years, including an assault in January at SoFi Stadium that left 40-year-old Daniel Luna with severe injuries.
Dodger Stadium has been the site of three especially vicious attacks. In 2011, paramedic Bryan Stow was beaten by two men and suffered a devastating brain injury. In 2015, a Bakersfield man, Ariel Auffant, suffered traumatic brain injury when he was beaten near stadium gates, and in 2019, an attack left Rafael Reyna with “severe traumatic brain injury,” according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Reyna against the Dodgers.
