Dave Chappelle attacked onstage while brandishing a blade-firing dummy gun and was apprehended on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon on Wednesday and booked into jail.
The LAPD announced that 23-year-old Isaiah Lee of Los Angeles had been arrested for the shocking attack on the 48-year-old comedian that was caught on camera at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night.
LAPD spokesperson Lizeth Lomeli confirmed that he was carrying a replica handgun with a blade inside. Records show that Lee was taken into custody at around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday and held on $30,000 bail.
An address given to him was that of a Los Angeles homeless shelter. He was described as being 5’10” and 140 pounds. His arm was twisted and apparently snapped while being led to an ambulance while strapped to an upright gurney, according to a video taken by security personnel who pounced on him, resulting in his hospitalization.
The right side of Lee’s face appeared swollen, and his bloodied nose and bloodied eyes were visible as he was carried out in a T-shirt bearing the word “Hollywood” in flames, similar to the logo of the skateboarding magazine Thrasher.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” one member of the crowd called out, as another yelled, “They beat your ass!”
After the attack, footage showed Chappelle joking about “stomping an n—a backstage.” Chappelle was temporarily knocked out by Lee’s flying tackle, which was caught on camera in a shocking fashion. As one audience member yelled, “Bust his ass!” at the stage invader, he fled, pursued by security.
Chapelle’s attacker was “punched and kicked the s–t out of him” by security, according to a tweet from reporter Brianna Sacks of Buzzfeed News, who was present at the “Netflix Is A Joke” festival.
When the man was being beaten in the back, “Chapelle kept going,” she said.
There had been a lot of controversy over his jokes about transgender people, so “the comedian had just said he now has more security because of the uproar,” she said, explaining why Chappelle’s first quip after the attacker was that it must have been, “a trans man.”
Chris Rock jokingly referred to his own onstage attack at the Oscars, asking, “Was that Will Smith?” Chris Rock comforted Chappelle on stage. Sacks claimed that Smith’s slap, as well as the heightened sense of danger it caused among comedians, was part of Chappelle’s set prior to his own scare.
“What is really surreal about this is that Chapelle talked about Chris Rock and the slap/new reality facing comedians/having more security with him and his wife being worried about him now,” she said.
“He did a whole bit about a crazy man coming to his house and chasing him down in his car,” she said.
Celebrity actor Jamie Foxx, 54, had also rushed the stage. “Whenever you’re in trouble, Jamie Foxx will show up in a sheriff’s hat,” Chappelle quipped of the actor’s unusual headgear at the time.
Police told NBC Los Angeles that the alleged weapon, which can eject a knife blade “when you discharge it correctly,” did not appear to have been used by Lee. In addition, it was not clear how he was able to enter the venue, which requires attendees to pass through metal detectors and even had a ban on mobile phones for the performance.
NBC noted that despite the fact that all phones were supposed to be left in specially designed pouches, several audience videos emerged. The venue’s security was dubbed “non-existent” by audience members who credited Chapelle’s team with stopping the attack.
“Shock and anger” toward the attacker were expressed by another audience member, Geoff Witt, according to The Washington Post.
Asked by the New York Post, “It was just a dumb person who was trying to do something stupid.” “Somehow, he evaded the first round of security.”