A date night for a couple turned into a bloody brawl that cut short comedian Katt Williams’ sold-out show at Indiana Farmers Coliseum over the weekend.
The Dark Matter Tour show was stopped Saturday night after the fight broke out in the upper level of the venue.
James Herron told IndyStar he and his wife, Tierra, were on their way out of the venue to avoid the very confrontation with a couple of men that ended the show.
Herron, 35, said he looked back to see one of the men taking a swing at his wife.
“By the time I got down there, everything was going left. I tried to get her out of there,” he said. “He came around, and once a punch was thrown that was that.”
Williams could be heard in one video posted to social media calling it quits after the melee. “Thank y’all for coming. God bless you. Have a good night,” he said.
The crowd was audibly upset. And many posted their disappointment online.
It all started with a group of men being raucous and making a section uncomfortable, Herron said.
Earlier in the night, well before Williams took the stage, a man sitting in the row in front of Herron was consistently invading his personal space, he said. Because the seats were so close, the back of the man’s head in the row in front of Herron would be close to Herron’s lap whenever he leaned back.
“I tapped him and I’m like, ‘Hey man I’m not trying to stop your good time; but can you please stop putting your head in my lap?’” Herron said.
Herron said the man responded with a dismissive gesture; and he walked to concessions to keep calm.
The guy’s friend though encouraged the man to fight Herron, he said. “He said, ‘You should really knock him out,” Herron said. “I couldn't pay attention to Katt Williams’ performance because of everything; it kept going on. I wasn’t sitting there arguing with him The guy was trying to irritate me.”
But Tierra Herron, also 35, urged her husband to keep cool, and they decided to leave the show, he said. They figured they could watch the last part of Williams’ set from the televisions places along the way out of the venue.
“My wife was like, ‘Baby, we’ve got kids. Let’s go,” Herron said.
On the way out though, he said, he looked back and saw one of the men, the one who had encouraged his friend to strike Herron, attempt to hit his wife. Herron doubled back and the fight was full on. Tierra Herron got in between her husband and the man, fearing they were too close to the balcony railing and calling for them to stop fighting. The man, who by then had a bloodied nose, intentionally wiped the blood on her face, she said.
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The couple first interacted with the men when guest Mo’Nique was doing her set, Herron said.
He said a group exiting the Herrons’ row when the couple arrived had warned them about the men in the row ahead, and a couple next to the men had complained to security about being bumped and made uncomfortable by the men’s behavior. Security told the men — there were four of them — to stop bothering other attendees. The men countered that they were not being rude and they were the ones being insulted, he said; then security left the area.
“I don’t know why security didn’t dismiss them the first time,” Tierra Herron said. She said she broke the heel of her shoe and bruised her thigh in the incident.
The Plainfield couple — he works in construction and she is a bus driver — were looking to keep their evening out as long they could that night.
“We tried to stay as long as possible because we were on a date night,” she said “We have three kids. We have jobs,, as well. And that was the first time my husband planned a date for me without me helping.”
Such violence, Heron said, is not in his nature.
“I will ignore people being completely out of control until you get in my face,” he said.
After seeing an outcry on social media from fellow show goers unhappy with the show being cut short due to a fight, Herron took to his platforms to explain in now deleted posts.
“We‘re here for a show and people pay their money for this, so I thought I should at least apologize; and at the same time give an account and tell people what was going on,” he told IndyStar. “It was eating at me. I told my wife I had to say something.”
TMZ reported that reps for Williams said the show was cut only five minutes early.
Herron said they gave statement to police at the scene. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and Indiana State Police on Monday told IndyStar they had no record of the incident.