Caught on Video; Shocking Video.
BANFIELD: Playing dress-up can be a lot of fun if you`re a kid, but normally, if you see a grown-up wearing a mask and heading for a cash register, it`s a good bet something`s about to go down. So when this fellow walked into a California Starbucks wearing a Transformers mask, waving around a gun and a knife and a plastic bag and then started to demand money, I guess it`s no surprise that a good Samaritan decided to step in and save the day. And he did. Wasn`t easy. Now, that good Samaritan got knifed in the neck, needed six staples to close that wound. But robbery averted. Bad guy arrested. Wouldn`t you know it that that good Samaritan is the one who actually may end up being sued because the guy in the mask got hurt. I`m going to wait for you to sit down, maybe even get a bourbon for this one. I want to take you to the tape so you can see exactly how everything played out and you can be Judge Judy. On the right-hand side of your screen, you can see the good Samaritan, arrows pointing to him. He`s got his drink. And on the left, you can see the man walks into the Starbucks, makes his way to the counter, pulls the gun out of the yellow bag, begins yelling at the barista, then to up the ante, pulls out a knife, points that at the barista. Cut back to the front of the store, you can actually see a worker who`s on her phone calling the police. And our good Samaritan`s now heading for the counter armed with a chair. And he slams that chair over the back of the perp, knocking the mask off his face, but the attempted robber doesn`t flee. He goes after the good Samaritan, fighting back with his knife. The battle intensifies. Customer grabs him in what looks like a chokehold. They knock over a store display and some tables. It is really intense. Perp is stabbing wildly with that knife, is taken down to the ground. He`s being punched over and over. Oh, look at this. There`s the knife and it is coming straight for the good Samaritan`s neck. The struggle for both the knife and the gun continued. At one point, you can see that customer wrestles away the knife and then begins using it on the alleged robber. Down for the count. You should know that both of these men suffered serious injuries, OK? But when the smoke cleared and the cops arrived, it was Ryan Michael Flores, the alleged robber, who ended up behind bars charged with some serious stuff, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon. But that alleged robber`s mom and dad are mad that he got hurt by the good Samaritan, and they say they`re thinking of suing that good Samaritan, say that, you know, using that chair and then stabbing their son with their son`s own knife -- well, they say that amounts to excessive force. Aaron Abeytia is the afternoon anchor for KMJ newsradio, joins me from Fresno. So did I get all those facts right, Aaron, just to be clear because it seems a bit crazy, so I want to make sure I`m right with all that. Am I?</s>AARON ABEYTIA, KMJ NEWS RADIO: You did. As strange as it sounds, that`s in fact what occurred.</s>BANFIELD: OK, so there`s got to be some back story, like the alleged robber`s got to some have story, a reason for all this to try to be a little more sympathetic. What is it?</s>ABEYTIA: He does. He says that he at the time was high on Xanax. He didn`t have any money for his wife and child. So he drove around -- this is almost on the outskirts of Fresno, highway 99 going through California`s major route. And so he said that he had contemplated holding up a gas station, but he said that he didn`t feel right taking advantage of the owner of that gas station, so he saw a Starbucks and thought, Why not Starbucks? It`s a corporation, nobody will be personally harmed.</s>BANFIELD: OK. So is there a little bit more to it? Because I think I read somewhere that he was high on meth and Xanax, which doesn`t give our audience...</s>ABEYTIA: Methadone and Xanax.</s>BANFIELD: Or methadone. OK. SO doesn`t give our audience a lot of sympathy for him except when you hear the reason, because as I understand it, he had originally had had a motorcycle accident...</s>ABEYTIA: Right.</s>BANFIELD: ... and because of the painkillers became an addict. The addiction led to being broke, wife and kid, no money, spends it all on drugs, ends up robbing. Is that sort of the chain of events?</s>ABEYTIA: That`s what they`re saying, he and his parents.</s>BANFIELD: So did you see the video as I saw the video? Because it looked like when Ryan Michael Flores turned and, you know, got hit in the back with the chair, he didn`t run. He didn`t run for the door. He actually went for the good Samaritan, Cregg Jerri.</s>ABEYTIA: Right. It looked as though he wanted a confrontation. I mean, I don`t know what exactly was going through his mind, but watching that, what else could you think? I mean, he very much tried to retaliate and to continue the confrontation. And then at one point, he struck Mr. Jerri in the neck.</s>BANFIELD: So let me bring in Paula Chiminienti because Paula Chiminienti is Ryan Michael Flores`s mom. She`s the mom of the man that you saw with the mask and the gun and the knife. Pamela, you know, I feel sympathy when I hear somebody who becomes an addict because of an accident or because of a football injury, and you know -- but I have a very tough time seeing someone menace a poor barista with a knife and a gun, and then sort of turning and attacking the person who`s protecting her. And you think it`s the person who was protecting her who`s at fault here.</s>PAMELA CHIMINIENTI, MOTHER OF ALLEGED ROBBER: I`m not here to discuss what Ryan did. I`m here to -- what you`re discussing is the beginning of the confrontation. My son was brutally and violently attacked when he was unarmed and stabbed 17 times and 16 while he was on the ground, on his belly, his back. And the perpetrator of that not willingly at one point stopped -- because you haven`t seen the entire video. And what you`ve shown your viewers is only the part of the robbery and when the good Samaritan...</s>BANFIELD: So I hear you. But I will say this, Pamela. I understand what you`re saying. If I were, you know, your son`s mom, I would be devastated, too. But then you have to realize the good Samaritan saw a man with a knife and a gun robbing a place, and when he tried to stop it, he himself was attacked. He himself got a knife to the neck, which is a lethal injury. And he ended up in a struggle for a gun and a knife. By the way, the struggle for the gun on the floor was when your son was on his belly not giving up the gun that this Samaritan thought, Well, if I took a knife to the neck a few seconds ago, I`m about to take a gun to the head. Can you not see where his mindset would be at?</s>CHIMINIENTI: I think your facts are incorrect on the gun...</s>BANFIELD: I`m looking at the video.</s>CHIMINIENTI: ... was plastic, and the good Samaritan knew it was a plastic gun.</s>BANFIELD: How does the good Samaritan know it was a plastic gun? I`m sorry?</s>CHIMIENTI: Because it was on the floor. The gun was already gone.</s>BANFIELD: So, OK, what about that knife? Was that plastic? Because it caused a knife wound to his neck.</s>CHIMIENTI: It couldn`t have been, Ashleigh, because the good Samaritan stabbed my son 17 times with it.</s>BANFIELD: Sure, but you know what I mean, right? Like, the good Samaritan took a knife to the neck which could be a lethal knife, and then they`re struggling for those weapons on the floor, right? And you`re telling me that the gun -- you`re telling me that for sure the gun was fake? Because you know that`s still a felony, right? You still go to prison if the gun is real or fake?</s>CHIMIENTI: Yes, we know. We know. But they don`t know -- there`s no for sure time or even how the injury occurred. It could have been while he was wielding the knife at my son 17 times.</s>BANFIELD: So let me get this straight. Your son, if he is this sympathetic character that he says he is, you know, because he`s got this addiction, he`s got a wife and kid he`s trying to support, he chose a Starbucks because it`s supposed to be a victimless crime. I don`t buy that. I think crime is crime. That barista will never be the same. She is now faced down what she thinks is a real gun and a very sharp knife and a man with a scary mask who she doesn`t know maybe has a laundry list of felonies behind him and has no compunction whatsoever to use those those weapons against her. So, she never ran for those two exits. And I`m going to show the video over and over so everybody can see there`s daylight to the right and there`s daylight to the left. He had two escape routes he could have left the minute that chair hit him in the back, but he didn`t. He did not, Mrs. Chimienti. He instead went after the man who tried to stop the robbery.</s>CHIMIENTI: He went for the one in the back.</s>BANFIELD: He didn`t. Look at the video.</s>CHIMIENTI: He went for the one in the back. The baristas actually thought it was a joke. She testified under oath. She thought her co-workers were playing a joke on her. That`s why she`s laughing in the video. You can clearly see it.</s>BANFIELD: So, do you think that when she see blood gushing out of the man`s neck that it`s funny and that she`ll still get over it?</s>CHIMIENTI: Oh, no. Actually they had to bring in -- Starbucks brought in counselors for the baristas because of what they witnessed that man did to my son.</s>BANFIELD: It has nothing to do with the robbery. The good Samaritan got a knife wound in his neck. Nothing like that? No?</s>CHIMIENTI: They had to bring people in because they were horrified what they saw, what he did to him. He took the</s>BANFIELD: I know you`re not cemented in on the idea of a lawsuit, that you`re still considering it. But are you seriously considering suing that good Samaritan who stopped the robbery, who stopped your son right there in the video from wielding a knife on anybody in that store?</s>CHIMIENTI: Not my choice.</s>BANFIELD: What`s not your choice, to file a lawsuit?</s>CHIMIENTI: Yes. I`m not going to be the one to file the lawsuit.</s>BANFIELD: Who is going to file the lawsuit then?</s>CHIMIENTI: Gee, who got injured, my son.</s>BANFIELD: So, your son is the one that wants to file the lawsuit?</s>CHIMIENTI: Yes.</s>BANFIELD: Not you. We were misinformed. We were told it was you.</s>CHIMIENTI: Before you put people and report stuff, do your homework. Get the facts right.</s>BANFIELD: I would say before you pick up a knife and a gun and put on a mask and menace society, do your homework. You could get hurt. Doesn`t that make sense? Doesn`t it make sense that your damn son could have really have hurt somebody? Doesn`t it make sense that your son committed a crime? Doesn`t it make sense that someone else tried to stop a crime and got seriously hurt and nearly died and you`re blaming him? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously here saying you`re going to sue that man?</s>CHIMIENTI: Excessive force under any circumstances --</s>BANFIELD: Saving your own life from a knife wielding crazed man! You think that`s excessive force? I think the apple doesn`t fall far from the tree. Good luck, Mrs. Chimienti, with your damn lawsuit. I hope you lose and the sheriff --</s>CHIMIENTI: I have no intention of suing --</s>BANFIELD: Wow, now I know where your son gets it. Some people! Coming up next, another one of these people. A woman going berserk when she sees a veteran, a U.S. army veteran with PTSD and a service dog to help him. Gosh, couldn`t you imagine he brought that dog into a restaurant? How dare he? The whole thing is caught on tape.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s disgusting to have an animal inside of a public restaurant. And --