A woman was hit on the head with a glass coffee pot during a violent early-morning fracas in a Chelsea diner on Sunday. Police say New Jersey resident Fatimah Ogunjobi assaulted the unidentified woman with the coffee pot around 5 a.m. in the Chelsea Square Restaurant. The woman was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with what a police spokesman described as "a serious injury to the head." Video taken by one customer shows the chaotic altercation:
Ogunjobi, 26, was arrested and charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon. The NYPD spokesman could not say if she had a weapon in her possession besides the coffee pot. It appears that pepper spray was also discharged by an officer trying to arrest Ogunjobi behind the counter, but the NYPD could not immediately confirm that.
Brooklyn-based filmmaker Kyron Hodges was in the diner during the incident and uploaded the above video to YouTube. He says the woman seen throwing a plate in the beginning of the clip was upset about her purse being thrown on the floor in the bathroom. Out of frame, Hodges said, was a group of women who were calling Ogunjobi "all kinds of derogatory names."
After the plate was thrown, Hodges says "all hell broke loose and the fighting continued even with a NYPD officer in the middle of it all. He initially tried to break it up with commands but it wasn't working out and he got hit by the girls as well. That's when he pulled out the pepper spray kept spraying all the girls until everybody got under control."
Hodges says he did not see anyone get hit by a coffee pot, but "there was definitely a lot of plates being tossed around."
Reached by phone, an employee at Chelsea Square Restaurant said no one currently working at the establishment had been present during the arrest. He declined to comment.
