Video shows ‘unprovoked’ attack by 80-year-old Redondo Beach Elks Lodge member – Daily Breeze
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Video shows ‘unprovoked’ attack by 80-year-old Redondo Beach Elks Lodge member – Daily Breeze

An 80-year-old man whose beating at the Redondo Beach Elks Lodge was caught on video is suing the lodge and two of its former members.

Joseph Lordeon of Redondo Beach, in a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, accused the lodge, former Exalted Ruler Nashana Steele and her husband, Lamont Steele, of assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, premises liability, negligence and elder abuse. .

See also: Beating 80-year-old Elks Lodge member upsets Redondo Beach Club

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Security camera footage from the May 5 meeting, obtained by the Southern California News Group, allegedly shows Lamont Steele searching the lodge for the MAGA hat-wearing Loerd and then repeatedly punching him in the lobby.

“This violent assault was completely unprovoked,” said former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who is assisting Lordeon on the case. “Why anyone would do such a thing to an elderly and frail man is beyond me. And to think that the perpetrator and his wife were officials at that club. That makes it even more cruel.”

Neither Nashana Steele, who has stepped down from her position as Exalted Ruler and no longer attends the Redondo Beach lodge, nor Lamont Steele, who the Elks have permanently banished, returned phone calls seeking comment.

Officials with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, headquartered in Chicago, have declined to discuss the alleged assault because it is a criminal matter.

See also: Allegations of aggravated assault of 81-year-old man at Redondo Beach Elks Lodge

“The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks has always believed that our lodges are places where members and their guests can feel comfortable and enjoy social opportunities in a caring and friendly environment,” spokesman Rick Gathen told SCNG in June. “There is no place for acts of violence in our lodges and the reports alleged are both disturbing and unacceptable.”

Founded in 1868, BPOE has nearly 1 million members gathered in 2,000 lodges across the United States and abroad. The Moose provide charitable services aimed at building stronger communities, sponsoring college scholarships, youth basketball teams, drug awareness programs and the like.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has charged Lamont Steele with aggravated battery and elder abuse. He is awaiting trial.

Lordeon told the Southern California News Group his examination started around 4:30 p.m. on Cinco de Mayo when he visited the 70-year-old Elks Lodge on the eastern edge of the oceanfront veterans park to see some friends.

On his way out about 15 minutes later, he said, a lodge member invited him to have some food at a private party attended by about 45 people at another bar at the north end of the lodge.

Lordeon, a real estate agent, was given a plate, grabbed a salad from a buffet table and started walking away. However, Nashana Steele blocked Lordeon and ordered him to leave the lodge because she was upset that he was wearing a Donald Trump hat, the lawsuit states. Lordeon can be seen in the video having what appears to be a heated discussion with Nashana Steele.

Lordeon left the dining room, but not the lodge, and sat down on a couch in the lobby to eat his food.

Nashana Steele sought out Lamont Steele, who was on a patio at the lodge, to kick Lordeon out, and described him to her husband as wearing a Trump hat, the suit says.

But a seven-page, heavily edited Redondo Beach cop Report offers a conflicting motive for the attack, saying someone told Lamont Steele that a man had assaulted his wife.