A political candidate campaigning for Sunny Isles Beach commissioner was arrested Sunday for allegedly hitting one teen and putting another in a chokehold, police said.
George Simon Bardmesser, 59, was at a political event with several of his constituents at El Tropico Cuban Cuisine, at 17020 Collins Ave., when surveillance video showed him walking behind a teen seated at a booth and putting him in a chokehold. The video goes on to show him slapping a teen in the face.
The owner and several patrons at the restaurant managed to get between the two and separate them.
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"And I stand up because he was looking at my friend and he walks around me, goes behind and grabs him and starts choking him from behind, and then everybody starts trying to take him off…. and then he also proceeded to punch my other friend in the face," said Sebastian Suels, who was in the middle of the altercation and whose mother is a city commissioner.
While on patrol, a police officer was flagged down by restaurant staff and Bardmesser was taken into custody, the affidavit said.
"People can know who they are, listen to their opinion, and what they have to say, unfortunately, it did not come out the way everybody wanted," said owner Pedro Vera, who broke up the fight.
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Bardmesser was then arrested and transported to Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center from the Sunny Isles Beach Police station.
Bardmesser is facing two counts of child abuse with no great bodily harm. He was still in jail as of Monday evening.
