Bar Warned after Fracas Leads to Drunk 18-Year-Old's Arrest

The Newport Police Department is keeping a close eye on a local bar after a fight between two men became a full-on fracas early Monday morning.

And police said nobody from the bar called 911, even after the fight moved out of the bar and onto the street by Perry Mill Wharf.

Police arrested one man, 18-year-old Juan Escobar, of 15 School St., Newport, after an officer saw him throw punches at other men on the America’s Cup side of Perry Mill Wharf shortly after midnight.

A large group of people was in the area in various stages of confrontation and police went inside the Perry Mill Tavern as they dispersed the crowd. An officer asked a bouncer what happened and he reportedly told the officer that a fight broke out and they didn’t call police.

A bartender told police that the fight started between two men and quickly escalated into a fight between two groups of about 10 people each. She said she didn’t call 911 because there isn’t a phone behind the bar.

Police said a manager also didn’t call police once the fight broke out and the officer “informed him that this was the second time on one week that an assault [or] fight took police and police were not called,” a police report stated. “I informed him this would not be tolerated.”

Police said they identified Escobar by a Guatemalan passport in his pocket and pay stubs from a city restaurant. He reportedly was too intoxicated to be fingerprinted and photographed and when asked how Escobar obtained alcohol, the bouncer reportedly said there was a private party earlier in the evening and it got busy, leaving the door “uncovered for a period of time.”