A North Carolina man was arrested on Saturday after video showed him pushing and punching a girl at a local mall as he was surrounded by dozens of onlookers.
Asheville, North Carolina, authorities arrested 51-year-old David Steven Bell shortly after video circulated on social media showing a man suspected to be him shoving a child and then punching her in the face at the Asheville Mall, WLOS reports.
The video shows a crowd of mostly teens gathered outside the mall around a man who appears to be Bell. One young girl approaches him, and he responds by forcefully pushing her. As she approaches him again, the man punches her in the face with all of his man strength, knocking her to the ground.
The Citizen-Times reports that all parties involved refused medical treatment. Bell was charged with assault on a female under the age of 12 and two counts of assault on a female. It appears that Bell was released shortly after his arrest, as he is “not listed as a current inmate in Buncombe County Detention Center’s online records.”
The parents of the girl in the video have not made a public statement about Bell, although The Root’s experts believe that her cousins are probably going to fuck him up.