A man was arrested at Chris Rock’s comedy show in Boston on Wednesday after causing a commotion and attempting to assault a police officer.
via People:
The Boston Police Department (BPD) confirmed to PEOPLE that two patrons watching Rock, 57, perform at the Wilbur Theater were causing “a loud disturbance” over the venue’s mask requirements at around 8:30 p.m., but only one was arrested.
A police officer who had been “monitoring the crowd” at Rock’s show investigated the disturbance, the BPD said, and found that the staff of the theater had been “attempting to remove two patrons from the show” after they “refused to follow the venue’s masking requirement for the show.”
While “one of the patrons was compliant with the request,” the second “became increasingly agitated, yelling loudly, disrupting the show, and physically assaultive towards the officer and theater staff,” according to authorities.
The suspect who was not compliant was identified by the BPD as 25-year-old Kaleb Herd of Quincy, Massachusetts. Herd “pushed the officer and theater staff and also struck the Officer in the leg,” officials said.
Once Herd was removed from the venue, the police officer pepper sprayed him “as Herd continued to try to assault the Officer,” the BPD said.
Herd was then taken into custody “without further incident,” per the BPD. He is charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, assault and battery on a police officer resisting arrest, and assault and battery. Herd will be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court.
Rock performed two shows at the Wilbur Theater on Wednesday (one at 7:30 p.m. and a late night show at 10 p.m.), as part of his Ego Death World Tour.
The standup sets wound up being where Rock broke his silence about the 94th annual Academy Awards, where he was slapped by Will Smith after cracking a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s bald head (Jada, 50, has alopecia).
“I’m still kind of processing what happened,” he said at his first show, telling the crowd he would probably talk about the incident later in a serious manner.
During his second show Wednesday, Rock said he didn’t want to “talk about that sh–,” and said the real disappointment of his week was when his daughter did not get accepted to the University of Southern California.
Though he did not mention Smith by name at either show, he seemed to imply that he hasn’t yet spoken with the King Richard star directly despite reports earlier this week that Sean “Diddy” Combs said the pair had made amends. (It was later reported that Combs never confirmed a reconciliation.)
“I haven’t talked to anyone, despite what you heard,” Rock said.
Smith, 53, first apologized about the incident at Sunday’s Oscars, expressing his sorrow to the Academy and his fellow nominees in a tear-filled speech while accepting his Best Actor trophy.
He did not mention Rock at the time, but apologized to the Saturday Night Live vet for the first time in an Instagram post on Monday. “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be,” he said. “There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”
Rock declined to press charges against Smith.
The Academy has spoken out about the incident, apologizing to Rock and condemning Smith’s actions. They’ve officially started a formal reviewaround Smith, and said on Wednesday that Smith was actually asked to leave after the incident but “refused.”
“Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated,” read a statement issued to PEOPLE. “While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently.”
Someone give Chris Rock some sage — clearly he needs to cleanse the energy around him.
