A South Florida couple was arrested after they beat up a security guard, with the boyfriend using the victim’s own Taser on him, in the parking lot of a Pompano Beach bar, authorities said.
The victim, Steven White, was left incoherent after the attack Monday around 2 a.m. outside El Palacio Restaurant and Sports Bar at 3521 Northwest 8th Ave., a Broward Sheriff's Office arrest report said.
Broward Circuit Judge John Hurley described the incident as a brawl.
The security guard tried to intervene in an altercation involving Kimberly Fuller, 25, but when he drew his Taser, Fuller’s boyfriend Daniel Atkinson, 35, struck him in the head, took the Taser and “drive stunned” White, who fell to the ground, the report said.
Atkinson and Fuller then kicked White about his face, head and body, causing a large laceration on his forehead and leaving the security guard incoherent, according to the report.
Their assault culminated a violent sequence of events involving the couple, according to authorities.
Atkinson and Fuller, who both face one count each of aggravated battery and battery, appeared in court before Hurley on Tuesday.
Atkinson’s bond was set at $40,000 for being the “primary person doing the beating,” the judge said. Fuller’s bond was set at $26,000. It wasn’t immediately known if they had attorneys.
A Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy said in the report that he was sent to the bar after a fight involving multiple people. Atkinson apparently took offense to a comment that Thomas Bennett made, and when Bennett excused himself from the conversation to go the bathroom, Atkinson followed and attacked him, the report said.
Atkinson struck Bennett in his face and head and threw him hard against the bathroom stalls, causing Bennett’s head to be cut open, according to the report. Atkinson then took the victim’s iPhone 4 and wallet from his pockets and walked out, with Bennett following him to the parking lot a few moments later, the report said.
Once outside, Bennett saw that Atkinson’s girlfriend, Fuller, and his girlfriend, Brittany Eskowitz, were having an altercation themselves, the report said.
Eskowitz got the worse end of it and was knocked to the ground – and Fuller then took her cell phone, a Galaxy 4 with a cracked screen, according to the report.
That’s when the security guard got involved. He "tried to break it up, but the suspects turned on him, took his Taser, and basically beat him to the point where he had to be hospitalized,” BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said.
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He was taken to North Broward Medical Center, the report said.
"Clearly if cooler heads would've prevailed, then this wouldn't have happened, no one would've been arrested, and that security guard would not have had to go to the hospital,” Coleman-Wright said.
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