A Dallas bartender has been arrested and charged after a video showed him hitting a woman outside his workplace in Deep Ellum, according to local reports and an arrest warrant.
Police said officers responded to a disturbance around 4:26 a.m. on a Wednesday in the 2800 block of Elm Street. The woman, 24 year old L’Daijohnique, told officers the man confronted her about blocking a parking lot exit. She told reporters she had driven the wrong way down the one way street to let friends out at a nearby hostel, and said, “I knew I was on a one way street, but I was stopping literally at the corner to let my friend out.”
According to the arrest warrant, the man tried to photograph her license plate, and she warned him to stay back or she would use mace. A bystander recorded the encounter on video, and at one point the man pulled out a gun, though he does not point it at her in the footage. She said she then tried to call police, and the man slapped the phone from her hand. She told WFAA she tried to push him away to defend herself and that he then attacked her.
Police said the man, identified in reports as Austin, was arrested at the scene, and a gun and knife were later found in his car. The person who recorded the video said he did not step in because the man was armed. L’Daijohnique said the recording helped her case. “In reality, that recording really helped me because when the police showed up, it would have been my word against his,” she said.
Reports say Austin has since been fired from his job, and L’Daijohnique has hired civil rights attorney Lee Merritt. We have not seen a statement from Austin. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and the charges have not been decided in court.
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