A video circulating on social media captured a group of Marines brawling with civilians outside the Voodoo Room nightclub in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 19. The street brawl appeared to get physical after a woman arguing with a Marine grabbed a cellphone from him and threw it.
As several bystanders looked on, one man wearing a white long-sleeved shirt who appeared to be with the woman threw a punch at one of the servicemen but missed, prompting multiple Marines dressed in their dress blues to jump into the melee.
Some of the Marines appeared to try to separate their brothers in arms from the civilians as one of them said, “Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, Stop. Stop. Stop.” Unfortunately, their efforts were in vain and the situation quickly escalated into a full-on brawl between three men and a sea of Marines after one of the men in blue pushed a man wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt after the man said, “Shut your b—h ass up.”
The man fought back and punched the Marine, prompting a second Marine to attack the man. One of the civilians who was wearing a T-shirt that said “Diggin’ Detroit” who had been trying to prevent the men from fighting jumped in after his friend was attacked by the second Marine.
After the first man fell into the street, the Marine began punching him as he lay on the ground and several other Marines jumped in before members of the Texas Highway Patrol and the Austin Police Department pulled them off.
One of the bystanders was heard chanting, “U.S.A.” over and over following the brawl. The civilian who was wearing the “Diggin’ Detroit” T-shirt was seen lying on his stomach while being detained by law enforcement as the fight was broken up.
The fight happened on 6th Street in Austin, a popular nightlife and tourist area of the city that increased its police presence last July to prevent crime. The video has been seen more than 6 million times on social media, and several people reacted to the Marine brawl.
Former “Basketball Wives” star Tami Roman responded to a post shared by The Neighborhood Talk.
“I’m not fighting a Marine for several reasons 1 I might lose 2 if the police come I’m surely getting arrested no matter who started it & 3 they fight for our country, something I’m never gonna sign up to do,” she wrote.
“Fighting a MARINE is WILD,” another Instagram user replied.
Another user noted that the three male civilians in the video — who are Black — were automatically accused of being the aggressors once law enforcement intervened.
“I hate how a lot of people are assuming the uniformed individuals were automatically in the right and the black boys were the aggressors — even from this short clip with no real background.”
One user replied, “They all gonna be doing 1000 pushups when the commanding officer sees this.”
It’s unclear if any arrests were made, but an APD Incident Reports Database search did not show any arrests.