Marine in Tutu Beats Up Disabled Vet Thinking He Was Wearing a Disabled Vet Halloween Costume | Riptide 2.0 | Miami | Miami New Times | The Leading Independent News Source in Miami, Florida
Navigation
Search

Humor

Marine in Tutu Beats Up Disabled Vet Thinking He Was Wearing a Disabled Vet Halloween Costume

Christopher Dabney certainly isn't feeling like one of the few and the proud this morning. The 22-year-old Marine was arrested in Gainesville early this morning while wearing a pink tutu after beating up a man he thought was dressed in a Halloween costume poking fun at disabled veterans. The man actually...
Share this:

Christopher Dabney certainly isn't feeling like one of the few and the proud this morning. The 22-year-old Marine was arrested in Gainesville early this morning while wearing a pink tutu after beating up a man he thought was dressed in a Halloween costume poking fun at disabled veterans. 


The man actually was a wheelchair-bound Marine vet, however.


According to The Gainesville Sun, the incident happened at 2:30 a.m, outside of a Pita Pit restaurant. Dabney spotted 35-year-old Daniel Priotti and just assumed he was wearing a disabled vet costume complete with a wheelchair. He started calling Priotti a fake and hit him twice. The blows were so hard they knocked Priotti out of his wheelchair. Priotti, who is paralyzed from the chest down, was unresponsive for at least ten seconds after the attack.

Pita Pit employees had to jump over the counter to stop the attack, and afterward Dabney attempted to leave.

"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," witness Alejandro Lemoine told The Sun. "Another guy came out -- there were enough people that he didn't get away with it."

Dabney now faces charges of abuse of the disabled.

Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.

KEEP NEW TIMES FREE... Since we started New Times, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Miami, and we'd like to keep it that way. With local media under siege, it's more important than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" program, allowing us to keep offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food and culture with no paywalls. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1.