A Long Island man has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a teenager over a baseball, with video footage showing the stunned youngster reacting to the sudden beating.
Andrew Chiaro, 36, was taken into custody May 25 and charged with misdemeanor assault and endangering the teen’s welfare for the May 21 clash, CBS News reported.
Trent Rounsvall, 15, told the outlet the confrontation took place while he was doing bike tricks with friends at Greenlawn State Park in Huntington, which is adjacent to a baseball field.
“A ball got hit into the park, almost hit me in the head, landed pretty much right in front of me, so I picked it up, put it in my pocket,” the teen explained.
He said some adult men from the baseball game immediately came over and “started cursing” at him.
In the video footage, Chiaro, wearing a No. 16 jersey, can be seen reaching for Rounsvall’s pocket before pulling the teen away from his bike and slamming him against the chain fence.
“He’s a f–ing minor!” one onlooker yells as Chiaro continues to pummel Trent.
“I was just thinking, no way this is actually happening right now, that someone who I can tell is a lot older than me was putting his hands on me,” the freshman at St. Anthony’s High School recounted.
His mother, Terry Lipton, said her son is struggling in the aftermath of the incident.
“[He] just sobbed, and I can’t remember the last time I saw my son cry,” Lipton told CBS.
“I held him and I just reassured him that he didn’t do anything wrong, that I was proud of him.”
Charges were not initially filed against Chiaro. Lipton’s mother claims police believed the adult baseball players, who claimed the teen and his friends were “punk skaters” set on disrupting their game — until the video surfaced.
The family now wants Suffolk Internal Affairs to investigate the police response.
“There was no, ‘hey kid, can I have the ball back’…he was attacked, the whole group of kids were intimidated,” Lipton tearfully told ABC7 of her son’s ordeal.
“You’re not hurt that bad, you are the same size as him, you know if we charge him with harassment, you’ll just get slapped with robbery and you’ll both be in cuffs,” she says the police told her.
Chiaro is suspended from baseball for 10 weeks, and his team has been banned from playing on Huntington’s fields.
The Long Island Stan Musial Baseball League is considering a lifetime ban, ABC7 reported.
Chiaro, of Massapequa, has a previous arrest for weapons possession, the outlet reported. He’s due back in court next month.
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