Ravens fan seen assaulting Commanders fans in viral video turns himself in, Baltimore police say
The man who Baltimore Police say assaulted two Commanders fans on camera in a viral video last week turned himself in Monday morning, according to police and his defense attorney.
John Callis, 24, surrendered to Baltimore Police’s Southern District station based on an agreement negotiated with authorities, his attorney Brian Thompson said.
Baltimore Police, who said last week that they had obtained a warrant for Callis’ arrest on assault charges, confirmed that Callis was in police custody Monday.
The video of the Oct. 13 encounter, which followed a Ravens-Commanders game at M&T Bank Stadium, depicts a man in a Ravens jersey — identified by police as Callis — punching one man wearing a Commanders jersey in the face before throwing another man in a Commanders jersey against a brick wall in Federal Hill. Police said both of the victims were 23-year-old men.
Police wrote in charging documents that Callis first encountered the Commanders fans a few minutes before the incident that was captured by cell phone video and eventually spread throughout social media.
According to charging documents, Callis is seen on surveillance footage passing the two men outside Cross Street Market at about 9:42 p.m. before turning around and grabbing one of them by the jersey. He proceeds to punch that man as well as the other man wearing a Commanders jersey, who appears to try to intervene.
A third person in a Commanders jersey tries “to create distance” between Callis and the others, and is then punched by Callis, police wrote. The tussle is eventually stopped when a female, who had been seen walking with Callis, grabs him. The three men in Commanders jerseys left, while Callis and the woman stayed in the area, according to police.
A few minutes later, the surveillance footage shows the fight that appeared in the viral video — two of the men in Commanders jerseys walk back to the area, where Callis approaches them again and punches one before pushing and dragging the other.
The three Commanders fans seen in the footage met with police at a law office last week, charging papers say. One of them told officers that the initial melee began after he heard a man, identified as Callis, direct an insult about the football team at them before grabbing his jersey and initiating the fight. They returned to the scene a few minutes later to find a cell phone that had gone missing during the encounter, he said.
In the charging documents, police wrote that two of the Commanders fans sustained minor injuries, but one of them — the man who Callis is seen striking first and who falls into a white car in the viral video — received “several bodily bruises and a severe head injury which had been diagnosed as a concussion.”
Details about hearings for the case were not available in online court records on Monday.
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