MIAMI (WSVN) - A judge has denied a Stand Your Ground motion filed by a man who was video recorded pointing a gun, cursing and yelling racial slurs at a group of Black teenagers on the Brickell Bridge in Miami.
The judge struck down Mark Bartlett’s motion after close to five hours of testimony, where Bartlett testified in his own defense, Thursday afternoon.
“Now that the 30 people are surrounding her at that corner, you see Dana [Scalione] start walking to the right,” Bartlett testified. “As soon as she does that, I hear a scream, and I hear her screaming. I heard Dana screaming. I reach back into my car, grabbed the gun out of the glove compartment, and I ran. I kept the car running. I kept the door open, and I ran as fast as I possibly can to the direction that the mob were chasing Dana. She was being attacked, without a doubt in my mind.”
Bartlett was arrested and charged with aggravated assault shortly after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day incident in 2019. That charge was later upgraded to a hate crime.
Witnesses called 911 after Scalione, Bartlett’s then-fiance, confronted the teenagers, who stopped traffic on the bridge. Shortly after, Bartlett could be seen on cellphone video running toward the group with a gun.
“I need somebody to help us right now,” a caller said. “We’re on the bridge of Brickell. There’s somebody with a gun. Oh, my God! There’s a guy with a gun! There’s a guy with a gun! Somebody help! Somebody help! Somebody help us!”
A trial date has been set for Dec. 6.
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