As if getting dolled up in a pink tutu for Halloween isn’t bad enough, a Marine is in big trouble after he allegedly attacked a paralyzed Army veteran he thought was using a wheelchair as a Halloween prop.
Christopher Dabney, 22, is facing charges of abusing a disabled adult after hitting Dan Priotti, 35, twice in the head at a Gainesville, Fla., restaurant, Fox News reported.
Priotti told police he was approached by another man while he was trying to order his food, saying the man yelled at him that he was faking his injuries.
He swung, slapped me, and I backed up and he missed. And he came at me like this, and put me right back, and I whacked my head on the concrete floor. I remember just seeing a guy in a pink tutu. I don’t remember saying anything to him. I literally lost 10 minutes.
Dabney isn’t talking about the incident, but a restaurant patron said he stopped the irate Marine to tell him what he’d done.
“As he was leaving I stopped him and said, ‘Man, you have to own up to this. You just hit a handicapped person twice. You made him fall over,'” Alejandro Lemoine said. “He was out cold. He was not responsive for at least 10 seconds. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling out cold. It was really sad. I couldn’t fall asleep. I felt anger.”
Priotti said he’s recovering, but he doesn’t want Dabney to go to jail.
They should make a mockery out of him, put him in his pink tutu and put him up and down University Avenue and 13th Street, right in front of the school, with a sign that says, ‘I beat up people in wheelchairs, veterans in wheelchairs,’ something like that.