HOLLY SPRINGS, Miss. — The owner of Holly Springs night spot C.J.’s Lounge is speaking out about an incident that gained his business unwanted attention.
Chevez Fitzpatrick says the reported beating of a man said to have been using racial slurs did not happen inside his business, and was not a hate crime.
ORIGINAL STORY: Man beaten, stripped over racial slur at MS club
He wants his name cleared, and shared video to prove his claim.
“I’m just here to clear up C.J.’s Lounge because that’s all I been hearing on the news…like the whole problem stemmed and everything that goes on stems from C.J.’s Lounge,” he said.
Fitzpatrick is fuming for the way he says investigators have handled the well-publicized incident outside the lounge Sunday morning.
“They trying to label this or investigate this as a hate crime when I’ve shown proof that it’s not a hate crime. It’s just a simple fight,” he said.
Fitzpatrick admits the victim was beaten, but outside of his business. Security video provided by C.J’s shows the white male dressed in brown shorts, a dark tee shirt and a baseball cap, dancing and moving around the lounge.
Video provided by C.J.’s Lounge shows the man dancing and moving around the club.
“The staff said he was bothering everybody during the crowd, but they wasn’t paying him no mind. They wasn’t paying him any mind,” he said.
Fitzpatrick says things turned ugly when it was time to close at 2 a.m. and the man started using the N-word, and got physical with C.J.’s security.
“I’m not going to go back and forth about black and white. I’m just saying he was belligerent and aggressive and an agitator and got handled by my security,” Fitzpatrick said.
He says after the subject was removed, things escalated in the parking lot, with the subject antagonizing a crowd gathered outside. That’s where the alleged beating took place.
Fitzpatrick says he plans to stay open in spite of a city order to close.
“I’m saying out of my mouth that I’m not closing,” he said. “I’m going to continue to exercise my beer license and exercise my privilege license from the City of Holly Springs as long as I stay in compliance with the City ordinance.”
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