Rage Behind Attack on Telegraph Ave.

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 8, 2014

TROUBLED TROUBLE-MAKER TROUBLES COFFEEHOUSE PATRONS, POLICE

Crime Scene. Photo by Ted Friedman.

According to numerous eye-witnesses, he called attention to himself with his loud mutterings and admonitions, Tuesday, at Berkeley’s leading hot-spot, Caffe Mediterraneum. In addition to capsizing marble tables and several chairs, the troubling man caused $500 damage to Med windows and raised hackles.

Fisted. Photo by Ted Friedman.

At one point the man lifted a dead-weight marble table from the floor and menaced patrons and staff with it. The marble table weighs, reportedly, more than one-hundred pounds, but the heavily muscled man lifted it handily.

And then things got wild. A man seated at a table next to the troubled man agreed with two Med staffers who asked the trouble-maker to leave. “I don’t want to have to sit here and listen to you,” the patron complained.

“You don’t know what I’m going through,” he screamed. “You don’t know who I am.”

Two Med staffers escorted the troubled man outside the caffe where the man lost no time expressing his rage by shattering two Med plate-glass windows with his bare fists.

Shattered. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Police were called and a nearby officer alighted from his squad car near the Med windows. Without delay, the cop arrested the man and deposited him in his rear squad car seat where the man continued to rage before he smashed the rear window of the cop car using the back of his head as a battering ram.

The troubling man had a few moves in reserve when the arresting cop pulled him out of his back seat to the street. Eye-witnesses say he used his forehead to head-butt a cop-car fender, leaving a dent as well as some blood (pictured).

Head-Butt draws blood. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Finally jailed, he was examined for injuries and judged well-enough to be admitted to Alameda County Jail on a host of charges according to police. According to People’s Park sources, the man, known as Johan, aka as “Johnny No-skills,” carried out four recent brutal attacks on innocent by-standers in People’s Park before his troubles at the Med.

Two South Side city of Berkeley cops told me they were “familiar” with the man. “He’d been out of town and we were glad of that; when he returned he wasted no time causing trouble,” said one of the officers.

A former emergency-room doctor, Dr. Tim Lawlor, said he had occasionally worked at Santa Rita County Jail, which will have to treat the troubled man, who may have a mood disorder, which is “treatable,” according to Lawlor.

Craig Becker, owner of the Med, who recently listed the Med business for sale, wasted no time calling in a window contractor (pictured).

Craig Becker, left, shows damage to Glass repairman. Photo by Ted Friedman.

More than a dozen witnesses contributed their accounts for this piece. Views here do not represent those of publications in which my work appears.

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