LOS ANGELES, May 4 (Reuters) – A man accused of bringing comedian Dave Chapel to the floor during a Hollywood Bowl performance in Los Angeles was charged Wednesday with a deadly gun attack.
The attack on Chappelle, 48, took place Tuesday night during a sold-out Emmy winner’s performance as part of the 11-day Netflix is a Joke festival, starring many of the leading names in stand-up comedy.
A Los Angeles police spokesman said the suspect had a copy of a pistol with a knife blade when he attacked Chappelle.
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Shortly after the attack on Chappelle, comic book colleague Chris Rock joined the scene, picking up the microphone and joking, “Was that Will Smith?” – a reference to his own attempt to be hit by the Hollywood star during the live Oscars. on March 27.
Chappelle appears to have emerged unscathed from Tuesday’s attack and continued with the show, joking with commercials about the incident and what happened to the suspect, who was seen being chased on stage by security officials.
Chappelle said he was lucky his attacker was “clumsy”, adding: “He’s there and he’s trampled,” according to a video of the brawl posted online from the celebrity news website TMZ.com.
Photographs of the suspect sitting in an ambulance then showed his face visibly bruised and his right arm apparently dislocated or broken.
Police later identified him as 23-year-old Isaiah Lee, who was in jail on a $ 30,000 bond after being charged.
No court hearing is scheduled for Lee, according to the prison’s online records.
Dave Chapel presents Jay-Z during the induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, October 30, 2021. REUTERS / Gaelen Morse / File photo
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There was no information from the authorities about the motive for the attack, which according to The Los Angeles Times took place after a routine in which Chapel, dressed in a business suit, talked about comedians who are more worried about personal safety these days and presented his own bodyguard on stage.
Chappelle provoked a backlash last year over material presented in his Netflix special comedy “The Closer,” which some in the LGBTQ community have branded as a mockery of transgender people. Supporters of the comedian saw the material in question as a cry against the “culture of abolition.” Read more
The comedian himself hinted at the controversy on stage shortly after he was confronted on Tuesday, jokingly: “It was a trans man,” causing laughter from the crowd.
The attack came when the comedian leading the multi-act show, dubbed “Dave Chapel and Friends,” admitted a producer who worked in the show’s DJ booth.
The video of the incident shows that the suspect rushed to the stage, apparently from the audience, and shot his upper body in Chappelle, hitting his shoulder in the ribs and chest of the comedian.
Both men fell to the floor before getting back to their feet, and the suspect threw himself away, chased briefly by Chapelle at first. He avoided the swarm of people for a few seconds before they collided with him at the back of the stage.
The incident drew immediate comparisons to the clash on the night of the Oscars between Smith and Rock, an unprecedented incident at a world television event that raised fears that other performers could face imitation attacks. Read more
“As pitiful and disturbing as the incident was, Chapel continued with the show,” his spokesman Carla Sims said in a statement Wednesday, attributing to Rock and his fellow comedian-actor Jamie Foxx that they had helped calm the crowd.
After the attack, she said Chappelle introduced the show’s latest act, hip-hop music duo Black Star. Other comedians on the bill include Earthquake, Leslie Jones, Jeff Ross, Sebastian, John Stewart and Michelle Wolfe.
Chappelle “fully co-operated in the active police investigation into the incident,” Sims said.
A spokesman for the Hollywood Bowl, one of Los Angeles’ most famous entertainment venues, told Reuters that the incident was under investigation, declining to comment further.
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Report by Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reports from Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Akriti Sharma and Shivam Patel in Bengaluru; Edited by Will Dunham, Howard Goller and Richard Pullin
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