‘Hey, can you keep it down?’ Teens break man’s jaw after he objects to music, cops say
On his way to drop off gifts after Christmas with his family, Robert Valentino objected to the loud music being blasted by some teens when they boarded a Portland, Oregon, train car, KATU reported.
“ ‘Hey, can you keep it down? That’s disrespectful. Some people don’t want to hear it,’ “ Valentino said he told the teens, KOIN reported.
In response, one of the youths turned up the volume and shoved the speaker in his face, Valentino said, The Oregonian reported.
“I turned back to them and I said, ‘Are you serious?’ ” Valentino said, KOIN reported. “And that’s when he had the speaker and I thought he was going to hit me with it.”
He threatened to take away the speaker, reported The Oregonian. Then the teens attacked.
“They just kept hitting me,” Valentino said, KOIN reported. “They just kept hitting me.”
Someone called 911 and the teens got off the train in the Dec. 27 incident, but Valentino had suffered a broken jaw and lost several teeth, KPTV reported.
Surgeons reassembled his jaw with metal plates and “he won’t be able to eat solid food for a couple of months,” according to the station. Valentino said “he can’t afford to replace his missing teeth,” the station reported.
Valentino was most upset that his wife and 10-year-old daughter witnessed the attack, KOIN reported. “One of the things for me, as a father. is to make her feel safe, you know, and that we do that every day,” he said. “This was one of those times that I wasn’t able to do that.”
Based on security videos of the attack, Portland police arrested two 15-year-old boys, who face assault charges and could be sentenced as adults if convicted, KATU reported.
Valentino, who had originally boarded the Portland MAX train with his family to go to his mother’s house to drop off Christmas presents, said he just wants the teens to be “held accountable,” KPTV reported.
This story was originally published January 9, 2019 at 10:44 AM with the headline "‘Hey, can you keep it down?’ Teens break man’s jaw after he objects to music, cops say."