Man Attacks Store Customer In Parking Lot

A visit to the video store turned violent when a man attacked a customer and then threatened to kill the security guard who intervened.

A 43-year-old man and his young son left the Blockbuster store at 11510 E. Sprague just before 9 p.m. Friday. The 3-year-old boy was complaining because his father hadn’t bought him a toy, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman David Reagan.

The boy’s complaints apparently got on the nerves of another man who was in the parking lot outside the store. “Shut up!” he screamed at the boy, and then yelled at another customer: “Have a rotten day!”

Then, Reagan said, the man ran up to the boy’s father, who was getting into his car, and punched him in the back of the head and in the face.

A Blockbuster security guard then ran out of the store and tackled the man.

“Then, the fight was on,” Reagan said.

After the guard had wrestled the man to the ground, the man screamed, “I’ll kill you when I get up!”

Soon, two Washington State Patrol troopers arrived, followed by two deputies.

“They had each other on the ground, they had like six or seven cop cars that showed up,” said Mindy Rowe, manager of a nearby Dairy Queen who witnessed the fight. “They handcuffed his wrists to his ankles.”

A manager at Blockbuster refused to comment on the incident.

Sometime during the fray, the father and son took off - the man saying his son was “freaking out.” Deputies tracked them down and learned that the man had suffered welts on his face.

Deputies arrested 34-year-old David Flair at the scene. He was booked into jail on charges of criminal harassment, but has since been released.

Flair suffered a gash on his forehead, apparently from being tackled by the security guard.

Flair “was apparently having a bad day,” said Reagan, “and decided to make it worse.”

, DataTimes