Joe Schilling could face legal ramifications after a viral video showed him knocking out a bar patron.
Joe Schilling could find himself in legal trouble after a video surfaced of him knocking out a bar patron.
A video surfaced earlier this week in which Schilling knocked out a bar patron in Florida. According to MMA Fighting, the Bellator MMA and Glory kickboxing veteran could face a misdemeanor battery charge, according to a police report obtained by the publication.
Representatives with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department made contact with the alleged victim Justin Balboa on Sunday night. Below is an excerpt from MMA Fighting’s story.
Balboa had a bloody lip and described Schilling as a 6-foot-5, 270-pound white male who “just hit him for no reason.” Balboa “would not elaborate on how or why the male punched him,” according to the police report, but was “obviously intoxicated.” That same night Balboa told officers that he “only wanted the incident documented in order to file a civil suit against the establishment.”
Officers also spoke to the manager of the bar on Sunday night. The manager stated that Balboa “was extremely intoxicated and had possibly made an improper remark about the girlfriend/wife of the male who had struck him, which caused the fight to escalate.” The manager also noted that Balboa “is a regular customer who routinely causes problems at the establishment due to his intoxication level.”
“Numerous other patrons of the establishment corroborated the manager’s story,” the police report noted, corroborating the story that Balboa started the altercation.
Balboa decided on Monday to prosecute Schilling for the alleged attack after seeing footage of the knockout blow.
“It was something that should not have happened,” Balboa’s attorney, Robert Solomon, told the publication. “It should not have happened. You watch that video and you cringe. This is a professional fighter. To tell me you felt threatened as a professional fighter that’s fighting in the highest level of all the fighting, Bellator and all these things, I don’t buy it. I think it was uncalled for, and there’s consequences when you do things like that.
“I think a professional fighter overreacted to a situation, that he didn’t need to do what he did,” Solomon added, “and to punch somebody as hard as he punched this guy, he’s lucky he’s not dead and we’re dealing with a different type of case.”
Balboa allegedly suffered “a head injury,” according to the lawyer, but the extent of the injury is currently unknown.
WOAH! Looks like Joe Schilling just knocked some dude out in a bar pic.twitter.com/2dWQ9cy07u
— Shakiel Mahjouri (@Shak_Fu) June 28, 2021
No charges have been formally filed by Balboa as of Tuesday, at the time of this writing, according to a representative for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
“As far as we’re concerned, the status of this case is on the victim’s shoulders right now,” rep Casey Liening said. “He has to make the effort to file the case with the state attorney’s office, and then it’ll go from there.”
Schilling wrote on Monday that he was “scared for his life” and was “simply defending” himself “against the evil in the world.”