An 18-year-old boy allegedly bit off a man’s ear in a fight on a Florida beach on St Patrick’s Day during Spring break.
Jack Turner is accused of walking up to Juwan Black at Fort Myers Beach and hurling racial slurs at him, then hitting him from behind, according to a Lee County Sheriff’s Office report.
A fight ensued and video footage captured the moment that Turner punched him in the head while holding him to the ground, deputies said.
Turner was recorded grabbing Black’s hair on the back of his head and shoving him on the sand and then biting the victim’s ear and causing ‘traumatic auricular amputation’, according to the report obtained by WFTX.
Onlookers broke up the brawl that began around 5pm on Monday.
Black was taken to Gulf Coast Medical Center and has been seen by a specialist, Fox News reported.
Turner has been charged with felony battery and is behind bars at Lee County Jail.
He had curly brown hair and wore a blue shirt and blank expression in his mugshot.
Turner and Black knew each other, but it was not immediately clear what led to the fight.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno stated that he has ‘ZERO tolerance for violence of any kind!’
‘Fort Myers Beach will continue to remain safe for all visitors and residents of Lee County!’ he said.
The sheriff’s office is deploying more deputies to patrol the popular beach in order to ‘ensure the safety and security of everyone’.
It happened six years after a huge brawl erupted in Miami during Spring break, with video showing young people throwing fists and tumbling onto the street as vehicles honked their horns. Dozens of men and women were tangled up in the fight. Some of the women were wearing swimsuits and many onlookers recorded the chaotic scene with their cell phones.
