Singer Patti LaBelle has been accused of ordering an attack on a man who was standing near her luggage. Twenty-three-year-old Richard King was waiting outside George HW Bush intercontinental airport in Houston, Texas when LaBelle allegedly rolled down her window and "gave a command to her bodyguards" to confront him.
King, who is a student at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, claims he was walking outside the airport on 11 March, talking to his brother on a mobile phone. He wandered into the passenger pickup area, near LaBelle's limousine. "Apparently, defendant LaBelle believed King was standing too close to her luggage, even though he was oblivious to her presence and the danger he was in," the lawsuit states. "LaBelle lowered the window of her limousine and gave a command to her bodyguards. They sprang into action ... LaBelle is hot-tempered ... and was a full participant in the cruel attack on King. She ordered it, and never tried to stop it."
In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, Richard King claims he was seriously injured at the hands of LaBelle’s bodyguards after returning to Houston for spring break on March 11, 2011.
"I woke up the next morning with staples in my head and that’s when it really hit me I was just like, 'Wow, what happened,'" said Richard King in a telephone interview with KHOU 11 News.
The lawsuit says King was waiting for his dad and brother to pick him up in a passenger pickup area when LaBelle, who arrived on a flight around the same time as King and was scheduled to play a concert at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort on March 12, passed by and got into a waiting stretch limo.
LaBelle was followed by two large carts of luggage. According to the lawsuit, King was standing near the luggage, with his back to LaBelle’s limo, talking on the phone, when the singer apparently decided he was too close to the bags, rolled down her window and gave a command to her bodyguards.
"He didn’t know who Patti LaBelle was," said King’s attorney John Raley. "He didn’t know he was standing anywhere near somebody famous ."
The lawsuit said two of the guards immediately "pounced" on King, knocking him back and punching him in the face.
After the initial attack, the lawsuit alleges the two guards came back, accompanied by a third guard, and punched and shoved him until he fell and hit the back of his head on a concrete pillar.
"His blood spattered on the concrete and his clothes, then pooled beneath him as he lay helpless on his back with a severe concussion," the lawsuit read.
All the while, King alleges that LaBelle "watched the vicious assault with approval" from her limo.
King said, "I was shocked. Those are some pretty big guys and I don’t know why they really felt the need to do all that all the damage they had done. I was shocked and kind of angry at the same time," said King.
King and his attorney, John W. Raley, characterized LaBelle’s bodyguards as "violent, paid thugs who have no qualms against assaulting innocent people."
When an ambulance came and took King away, the lawsuit claims the singer didn’t exit her limo. But when police arrived, LaBelle allegedly got out and posed for photographs with the officers.
"That was really a sad scene for me to see a Houston police officer posing for a photograph with Ms. LaBelle literally standing over the blood of cadet King," said Raley.
When interviewed by HPD, the lawsuit says the bodyguards lied to officers, conveying false statements about King that were relayed by someone at HPD to his superiors at West Point.
"He is suspended from West Point temporarily for a year or a year and half. He will have to serve in active duty as an enlisted man and he may well be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. If he makes it through his tour of duty he is going to be permitted to reapply to West Point and hopefully graduate and become an army officer," said Raley.
The extent of the damage to King’s military career has yet to be determined.
"LaBelle is hot-tempered herself, and has a reputation for both inciting and participating in acts of violence in public," "She ordered it, and never tried to stop it."
LaBelle did get out of her car by the time the Houston Police Department arrived on the scene. In security-camera footage, she is seen posing for snapshots with the officers just a few feet from the blood-splattered pavement where the beatdown took place
The fact that this Cadet has been thrown under the Bus should not surprise you, another case of the Big Bad Liberal Singer, acting as if she were the Queen of Sheba and getting her way . But then again, that's how these thugs act.
And whats the idea of the Cadet's 18 month suspension and then deploying him to Iraq or Afghanistan? I didn't know that deployment to a war zone was considered as PUNISHMENT! But live and learn, anything can happen in the USA these days. Even Pattie LaBelle watching the vicious assault with approval from her limo, and then posing for pictures with a Houston police officer over the blood spattered concrete.
I guess it sure pays to be The Queen!
http://ksfa860.com/west-point-cadet-sues-singer-patti-labelle-over-airport-beating/