Authorities arrested a man after he was allegedly seen on video sucker-punching an 11-year-old girl in the face outside a North Carolina shopping mall on Saturday.
David Steven Bell, 51, of Black Mountain, allegedly attacked the young victim outside the Asheville Mall after several girls surrounded him.
A video of the encounter shows the 6-foot-5-inch tall man shoving one of the girls during a heated altercation, but the situation escalated when Bell decked the girl as she was running towards him.
The other girls surrounding the 11-year-old could be heard screaming over the video, which ends when the girls try to run inside the mall.
It is unclear what started the altercation and what condition the 11-year-old was in after the attack.
An off-duty cop arrested Bell on multiple charges, including assault of a child under the age of 12 and two other accounts of assault on a female, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.
Bell is due back in court on December 5.
A spokeswoman for the mall said officials are reviewing the incident to see if the mall needs to upgrade their security presence.
“Some measures are visible to the public and others are not,” mall spokeswoman Catharine Wells said. “In addition to maintaining a full-time professional security team, we partner with the Asheville Police Department and hire off-duty officers to patrol the interior and exterior of the property.”
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