A cruise passenger was arrested and faces a second-degree felony assault charge after an incident in a cruise ship elevator.
Michael White, age 18, of Siler City, NC, was arrested after the Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas docked at Port Everglades.
As well as White, there is at least one other co-defendant in the arrest report, but hasn’t been named, according to Broward County court records.
Assault After Disagreement in Ship Elevator
An altercation took place after a woman who was with the assault victim complained that a group of “kids were jumping up and down on the elevator.”
After telling them to stop, the group became threatening, the report says.
“At this point, (the victim) yelled to stop jumping in the elevator, but wouldn’t stop; they kept arguing and calling them names,” Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Demetrius Williams wrote in the report.
The elevator stopped on the eighth deck, so the victim and the woman tried to exit.
“The kids did not move when the door opened, so he pushed through the crowd to exit the elevator. Once he got out, he said he started getting struck by individuals in the face, causing him to stagger backward.”
The report said that when the victim fell to the floor he was repeatedly kicked and then blacked out. “The next thing he knew, he woke up in a pool of blood on the floor.”
The report stated the victim’s injuries as “a minor laceration on his left ear, redness and bruising on both sides of his head, swelling to the back of the head, and possibly a fractured nose.”
White is facing a felony charge of aggravated battery causing bodily harm.
He was released from jail at the weekend after posting a $5,000 bond. A judge ordered him to have no contact with the victim.
