The audience member who tackled Dave Chappelle on stage while armed with a blade-firing fake gun was identified Wednesday as he was booked for felony assault with a deadly weapon.
Isaiah Lee, 23, of Los Angeles, was charged with the shocking caught-on-camera attack of the 48-year-old comedian at Tuesday night’s show at the Hollywood Bowl, the LAPD said.
He had been carrying a replica handgun that had a blade inside, LAPD spokesperson Lizeth Lomeli also confirmed.
Lee was booked just after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and held on $30,000 bail, records show.
He was listed as being 5 feet 10 inches tall and just 140 pounds, and an address given for him matched that of an LA homeless shelter.
He was also hospitalized after security pounced on him, with video showing his arm twisted and apparently snapped as he was booed while being led to an ambulance while strapped to an upright gurney.
Lee also appeared to have a puffed-up, bloody right eye as well as a bloody nose as he was carted out wearing a T-shirt with “Hollywood” written in flames akin to the logo for skateboarding mag Thrasher.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” one member of the crowd called out, as another yelled, “They beat your ass!”
Footage also showed Chappelle joking about how he “stomped a n—a backstage” after the attack.
Lee was caught in shocking video footage as he suddenly raced toward Chappelle from his right and temporarily knocked him down with a flying tackle. The stage invader then raced off, chased by security, as one audience member shouted, “Bust his ass!”
The security “rushed and started punching and kicking the s–t out of Chapelle’s attacker,” tweeted Buzzfeed News reporter Brianna Sacks, who attended the gig, part of the “Netflix Is A Joke” festival.
“Chapelle kept on while the guy was getting beat in the back,” she said.
“The comedian had literally just said he now has more security because of all the uproar from his jokes about the trans community,” she said explaining why Chappelle’s first quip after the attacker was that it must be “a trans man.”
Chappelle was comforted on stage by Chris Rock, who jokingly referred to his own onstage attack at the Oscars, asking, “Was that Will Smith?”
Smith’s slap, and the heightened threat felt by comedians, was also part of Chappelle’s set before his own scare, Sacks said.
“What is really surreal about this is that Chapelle talked about Chris Rock and the slap/new reality facing comedians/having more security with him and his wife being worried about him now,” she said.
“He did a whole bit about a crazy man coming to his house and chasing him down in his car,” she said.
Hollywood star Jamie Foxx, 54, had also been one of the first to rush onstage.
“Whenever you’re in trouble, Jamie Foxx will show up in a sheriff’s hat,” Chappelle quipped of the actor’s unusual headgear at the time.
It was unclear if Lee had tried to use the alleged weapon, which can eject a knife blade “when you discharge it correctly,” police told NBC Los Angeles.
It was also unclear how he managed to get it into the venue, which forces audience members to go through metal detectors and was even supposed to have a ban on mobile phones for the show.
Still, several audience videos emerged, even though all phones were supposed to be left in specially designed pouches.
Audience members credited Chapelle’s team for stopping the attack, calling the venue’s security “non-existent.”
“Seemed like Dave’s entourage, security and crew dealt with the situation,” Jed Simon said.
Simon said that Chapelle returned to performing, even as security was still wrangling the attacker on the stage.
“When Dave came back to the mic, he kept saying ‘Get that guy off the stage’ because the attacker was still on the stage being held down by 20 people,” Simon said.
Another audience member, Geoff Witt, said there was “shock and anger” toward the attacker.
“It was just a dumb person trying to do something stupid,” he said. “He somehow got by the initial security.”
