‘You better respect me!’ Video shows all-out brawl at Rey’s Pizza in Hialeah
A violent brawl at a Hialeah pizza joint was captured on video late last year, but it’s unclear if the parties involved will face charges.
The clip, which has been widely circulated on social media, shows a group of diners at Rey’s Pizza, a 24-hour restaurant, at about 6 a.m. Dec. 8, NBC6 reported.
Two men, sitting separately, appear to be heckling two transgender women, one blond, the other redhead, sitting at a table eating. A man in a green shirt sidles up next to the blond and she pushes him away.
More heckling and laughing, then the blond gets up and confronts the man in blue, telling him not to talk to her anymore. The customer curses in Spanish, saying, “Touch me and see what happens, m--icón,” a slur for a gay male.
That’s when the redhead approaches the seated man and slaps him across his head. He gets up to fight back and the chairs and tables start sliding across the floor. The customer in the green shirt steps in to the fight.
The redhead yells in Spanish, “What did you say to me? What did you say to me?” and “You better respect me!” while beating the original man with an object, which appears to be a shoe or a purse.
The pizzeria’s lawyer, Julio Gutierrez, told the Miami Herald that an employee saw the melee and pressed the panic button in the back and called 911. Cops, along with an ambulance arrived, and the two men were taken away on a stretcher. Their injuries are unknown.
The incident is being investigated as aggravated battery by the Hialeah Police Department, said Gutierrez.
A spokesman for the Hialeah PD referred the Miami Herald to the City of Hialeah Clerk’s Office.
“From what I see from the surveillance video, there could be a self-defense claim,” Gutierrez said, adding that alcohol may have played a role, although no one involved in the altercation was served there. “The cops will do their investigation and we’ll cooperate with everybody. We’ve never had this problem before.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 5:11 PM.
