A viral video of the incident showed a fan repeatedly punching an employee after being asked to move to his assigned seat
A teenager has been charged with assault after allegedly attacking a venue employee at a recent YoungBoy Never Broke Again concert in Kansas City last month.
As Fox 4 in Kansas City reports, the teenager is facing one count of felony assault and one misdemeanor assault charge in the Juvenile Office of the 16th Judicial Circuit in Jackson County. The suspect was not named because he is a minor, and subsequent court proceedings will be private and confidential for the same reason.
The incident occurred at NBA YoungBoy’s Sept. 21 concert at the T-Mobile Center, and video of the attack went viral. In the clip, the employee, 66-year-old Thomas Schlage, is pushed to the ground and repeatedly punched. The suspect was also accused of assaulting a security guard while being ejected from the arena.
The witness who filmed the video, a local pastor named Robert McDaniel, said the altercation occurred after the employee told the suspect that he wasn’t in the right seat. “He was asked to move to another place, because his ticket wasn’t where he was sitting,” McDaniel said. “And immediately he just completely lost it.”
Speaking of the attack, Schlage said, “I mean it is serious; I went down and had blows to my head. Just getting him off, getting him off of me … because he was so enraged, so we were just, in essence, trying to protect the fans.”
Schlage was contacted again after news that the suspect had been charged. While he said “accountability is important,” he added it was “kind of sad things got to this point. Restraint, cooperation, and respect are important lessons to learn.”