Screenshot : Anthony Wall ( Facebook )

Updated: Monday, May 14, 2018, 4:50 p.m. EDT: Attorneys representing 22-year-old Anthony Wall, who was choked by a police officer at a Waffle House in early May, say that the young man was the subject of homophobic slurs from Waffle House employees.


Lawyer Benjamin Crump is asking for surveillance footage from the night of May 4, according to NBC News, and would not repeat what was actually said to his client.

“They sat down at the table, and note what the first statements were from the Waffle House employee,” Crump said at a news conference. “It wasn’t welcoming or inviting, and almost so inappropriate I have problems even repeating [what] he told Anthony Wall, his little sister and others in his party.”


Wall, who was clad in a tuxedo after attending his sister’s prom, allegedly confronted the waiter by saying that he could not speak to the group in that manner, and then the situation escalated, ending with the police being called and the young man being choked by a Warsaw, N.C., police officer.

“You will see from the video evidence as well as other objective evidence that indicates it was the Waffle House employees who were the initial aggressors,” Crump added, calling the workers unprofessional. “Waffle House employees used homophobic slurs to Anthony Wall.”

Also on Monday, the chain restaurant announced a wider investigation into whether the chain has a pattern of discrimination based on race and sexual orientation.

Earlier:

A burly bitch of a Warsaw, N.C., police officer brutally arrested a 22-year-old black man at a Waffle House, just hours after he escorted his 16-year-old sister to her prom on May 5.


According to WTVD-TV, Anthony Wall got into an argument with servers, and an employee hit the panic alarm. During the confrontation with the officer, he says, his need to breathe was the reason he resisted the officer.

“I was pretty much trying to scream for air and trying to breathe because he was holding my throat, and that’s when I got aggressive with him because you are choking me,” Wall told WTVD. Wall did accept responsibility for the argument with the employees, but he does not feel that the officer was justified in using the force he used.


In the video, you can hear the person filming the incident state that the officer is in the wrong and that she’s glad she’s catching it on camera. But according to Warsaw Police Chief Eric Southerland, people on social media tend to blow things out of proportion.

“I wish people would not blow things out of proportion and not let one situation create any additional situations,” Southerland said. The officer involved in the arrest has not been identified, and Southerland stated that the incident is under investigation.


You know, what’s a little choke hold got to do with it? Wall was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct for arguing with the Waffle House employees.