After allegedly mocking a guest with Down syndrome at a Walt Disney World resort, a 61-year-old man got a beatdown. He says he was just having a “good time” when he was attacked, but others say he got what he deserved. Which do you believe?
Brent George, a 61-year-old Ohio native, was enjoying himself at the Belle Vue Lounge — a small 1930s-style speakeasy bar area inside Disney’s Boardwalk Inn at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida — when his trip to the most magical place on earth took a bloody turn. George had been drinking with his wife and two friends when he reportedly downed three shots of bourbon and a beer before allegedly sauntering over to a wheelchair-bound woman with Down syndrome.
Sadly, George hadn’t meandered over to the disabled woman to make friends. Instead, after ambling over to the nearby table occupied by the woman and her family, a “wasted” George allegedly began making fun of the woman, sparking a brawl with her family, according to the Daily Beast. Police received reports of a fight at the Belle Vue and responded to find an intoxicated George sporting visible injuries to his face. As they began to investigate, officers received two very different stories about what had happened.
George told officers that someone in the lounge had just pitched a glass cup at him, but he was unable to recall specific details about what led up to the seemingly unprovoked assault. Despite being unable to recall any useful information and not being able to identify who hit him, George said he wanted to press charges.
“He stated he was having a ‘good time’ with the individuals and then he was attacked by them,” an affidavit from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office explained.
A friend tried to back him up, telling police that George had approached the family “because they were ‘having fun.'” The friend then claimed that he witnessed a glass being thrown, resulting in George bleeding from the upper left side of his face, and he said he overheard someone at the table “say that they wanted to kill him.” The friend alleged that George acted in self-defense, but the woman’s family had a much different — and more detailed — recollection of events.
Rather than the unwarranted attack that Brent George claimed to have suffered, Wesley Goldberg, who had been sitting at the table with his family, said that George approached them and started taunting his sister, the wheelchair-bound woman with Down syndrome. According to the affidavit, Wesley said George mocked his sister “by imitating the grunts that she occasionally made.” Disturbed by George’s actions, Candace Goldberg, the mother of Wesley and his disabled sister, stood up and asked if the intoxicated man was making fun of her daughter.
Sadly, that’s when the Goldbergs claim things went from bad to worse with a drunken George allegedly getting up and physically shoving Candace Goldberg — not once but twice, according to Law & Crime. Things escalated from there into an all-out melee, with George allegedly slapping Wesley’s wife Maria across the face when she tried to intervene. This, of course, prompted her husband to get involved, trading blows with George until he was grabbed in a bearhug by “an unnamed bystander” and removed from the scene.
Although Brent George said he was smashed in the face with a glass, no broken glass was found in the area, so “it is believed no glass cup was utilized in this incident.” Instead, the injuries he sustained are believed to have come from the punches he received after mocking, shoving, and slapping members of the other family. With facts seemingly on the other table’s side, Brent George was handcuffed, arrested, and transported to a local jail, where he spent the night before being released the next day after his wife paid his $4,000 bond.
Brent George was charged with four counts of first-degree battery but maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty to all charges. However, the court of public opinion quickly found him guilty as news of the incident spread across the web. Infuriated social media users quickly decided that the drunken Ohio native got exactly what he deserved, saying he was taught a valuable lesson, and I’d have to agree. Regardless of what happened leading up to the brawl, this is a reminder that getting wasted — especially in public — rarely has a good outcome.
