Fan punched 78-year-old at TCU spring game?
Super Frog does not condone punching the elderly, or anybody for that matter. (USATSI)I’ve never attended a spring game as a fan, nor do I plan to, but if I were to one day end up in attendance for the scrimmage, I’d have a few rules for myself to follow. First of all, I wouldn’t take anything that happened in the game all that seriously. It’s just a practice. Secondly, I wouldn’t punch anybody else in the face, especially if that person is pushing 80 years old.
One man at the TCU spring game allegedly follows a different set of rules.
Shea O’Neill is a 42-year old Fort Worth firefighter who’s been charged with injury of the elderly — a first-degree felony — after he allegedly punched a 78-year old man in the face, chipping several of his teeth, during the TCU spring game. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the alleged dispute began over the actions of O’Neill’s kids.
O’Neill’s kids were reportedly playing on the railing in front of the handicapped section where the 78-year old man was sitting with his wife. Fearing for the children’s safety, both the man and his wife asked the kids to stop playing on the railing. The kids continued to play, and then O’Neill became involved saying that nobody else disciplined his children.
Then things escalated:
The husband said that he sat down and that he and O’Neill had a heated exchange. He said he had just looked over his right shoulder toward O’Neill when he suddenly saw a red flash and was knocked out of his seat.
“He hit me square in the face,” the husband said. “I saw a flash. Then my whole front face from my eyes on down to my chin went numb,” the husband said. “… I couldn’t get up because I had cobwebs in my head. He smacked me really good.”
He said he had no warning and was unable to defend himself against the punch, which bloodied his nose and left bruises on his face.
“I did not see it coming. If I had … I would have tried to deflect it or duck,” the husband said. “Once I got up and stabilized myself, then I started after the guy. [Another] guy restrained me and said, ‘Let the police do it.’ If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been on it.”
Now, to be clear, we’re only getting one side of the story in this account. Things may have gone down a bit differently, but even if they did, I would like to think there were other ways to end the situation that didn’t involve a 42-year old firefighter allegedly punching a man 36 years his elder in the face.
O’Neill declined comment to the paper, referring all questions to his attorney. He was released from the Mansfield Jail on Wednesday morning on $100,000 bail.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
