A Las Vegas security guard ripped the phone out of a man’s hands as he was recording a group of other security guards beating a man for having danced on the sidewalk, smashing the phone on the sidewalk and damaging it.
The video survived showing about a minute of security guards piling on a man and punching him as another security guard tries to keep the man from recording.
However, when a Las Vegas Metropolitan police officer arrived on the scene to investigate, he had no interest in viewing it.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the cop told him. “This doesn’t concern you.”
The incident took place February 12 in front of a video arcade bar in downtown Las Vegas called Insert Coins, for whom the guards beating the man were employed. The guard trying to keep the man from recording appeared to work somewhere else.
And the guard who snatched the man’s phone, worked for the Griffin, a bar across the street. He has since been fired.
However, Christopher LaPorte, owner of Insert Coins, quickly defended his guards as having done nothing wrong.
The man who recorded it is remaining anonymous but has retained an attorney, Stephen P. Stubbs, who posted the video on his Youtube channel with the following description:
On the evening of February 12, 2015, A man (who appeared to be homeless and/or under the influence of drugs/alcohol) was dancing on the sidewalk in front of Insert Coins on Fremont Street.
Security guards were yelling at him to leave and the dancing man ignored them (continued dancing). When the Security guards taunted the dancing man to attack them, my client (who does not wish to come forward with his identity) took out his phone and started recording.
A security guard attacked the dancing man, beat him up and continued to choke and beat him even after he was lying motionless on the ground. A plain closed security guard tried to obstruct my client from videotaping the incident and even physically pushed him away.
A security guard from the Griffin on Fremont then crossed the street, attacked my client, grabbed his phone and smashed it on the ground (destroying it).
My client waited for the police, tried to make a statement and told LVMPD that he had video. A LVMPD Officer ordered him to “Get the f@!! out of here. This doesn’t concern you”. My client left (fearing that he would be arrested) and contacted me.
The video, which so far has almost 3,000 views, prompted LaPorte to state the following on Facebook.
But when Stubbs visited LaPorte to see the surveillance video, he reported that it proved the security guards were the ones initiating contact.
Nevada Cop Block, which has been reporting on this story since last week, staged a protest along with a local activist group called Southern Nevada Watchdogs in front of Insert Coins. The activists wrote messages with chalk on the sidewalk near the business’ entrance while showing the video to pedestrians as well as talking about it through a megaphone.
