YouTuber Ely was apparently assaulted by an off-duty member of the Army while recording b-roll footage in Orchard Beach, NY, on Thursday.
Ely claimed that he was walking across the street to view a red house when a man who was sitting in a chair in the alleyway next to the red house. The man flipped him off and aggressively approached him to inquire why he was filming in public.
As the man engaged Ely and Ely shouted back to him, the man’s son came out of the house and interjected himself into the situation. The son, who identified himself as an off-duty member of the Army, reportedly swung multiple times at Ely’s main camera, knocking it out of Ely’s hands and breaking it.
Ely then said the son advanced on him and attempted to swing at him multiple times, missing Ely and leaving him open to repeated counter punches. When the man was subdued and apparently unconscious, Ely took a cell phone from a friend that had accompanied him on his journey and forced him to record the aftermath of the attack.
As the son regained consciousness, he and his father continued to take an aggressive stance towards Ely and his friend. Ely explained that he was a journalist filming for a story that would appear on his YouTube channel and that the first amendment provides him with the right to record in public.
While the father remained aggressive towards Ely and his friend and a crowd gathering, some shouting support of Ely, the son eventually changed his attitude and asked to speak to Ely outside of the presence of his father.
The son apologized and explained that his father was an alcoholic, while he maintained that he did not intend to harm Ely, he apologized for breaking the camera. He claimed again to be an active member of the military and that a report would do serious harm to his career.
Ely accepted the man’s apology and said he would not be filing a police report, nor would he be making the man pay for his camera. The two shook hands again and parted ways. Ely and his friend returned to his SUV, where Ely complained about numbness in his thumb and pain in the rest of his hand.
When Ely released the footage to his channel on Thursday, he indicated that when the camera was dropped it saved the footage in a file format that could not be read. He is attempting to recover the footage and will release the footage from the fight if it can be recovered.
While kept his word and did not disclose the son’s identity, he did not blur the son’s face on a video with the potential to go viral. The son may be easily identifiable from his appearance and mannerisms and face punishment for his actions from military officials.
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