Dave Chappelle's Hollywood Bowl Attacker Sentenced, Still Awaiting Trial For Separate Knife Attack
The man charged with attacking Dave Chappelle onstage at the Hollywood Bowl this past May has pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of battery and entering a restricted space – 24-year-old Isaiah Lee will spend 270 days in jail for the crimes, according to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
This will not be the end of Lee’s legal troubles as he still faces an attempted murder charge for an unrelated incident in which he allegedly stabbed his roommate. Lee has been held on $1 million bond for the attack unrelated to the Hollywood Bowl incident.
Much has been speculated about the motives behind Lee’s decision to rush the stage in the middle of Chappelle’s performance at the legendary Los Angeles venue – Chappelle was able to question Lee immediately after the attacker was detained, and the comedian reported that Lee claimed he was trying to raise attention for his grandmother who was in danger of being forced out of her home due to gentrification.
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Then, just weeks after the Hollywood Bowl incident, The New York Post published a jailhouse interview with Lee in which he claimed to be “triggered” by Chappelle’s jokes about the transgender community and about homelessness. The attacker said that he didn’t intend to hurt Chappelle, and that he simply wanted to somehow convince the comedian to be more “sensitive” with his jokes by rushing him onstage while possessing a replica handgun with a retractable knife.
Though many media outlets have focused on Lee’s comments about Chappelle’s transgender jokes in light of the long and arduous history of friction between Chappelle and the trans community, it appears from Lee’s inconsistent story and alleged prior history of violence that the Hollywood Bowl incident was an instance of a disturbed person lashing out in a public setting. It sure seems that there ‘might’ have been a rush to judgement as to the actual motivations, and that it was not a politically motivated, expertly planned stunt by trans activists to exact revenge on a controversial comedian.
