This is the moment an angry customer who was not allowed to buy beer on credit goes behind the counter in a snack bar and bites a chunk out of an employee’s ear as he tries to protect his mum.
The incident took place in the town of Sao Jose da Tapera in the Brazilian state of Alagoas in the early hours of Friday, 1st October.
Security-camera footage shows how an argument commences when an unnamed customer goes up to the counter and tries to take beers without paying for them, but is denied, as per company rules.
The argument then turns into a scuffle involving the customer and several employees, one of them a 20-year-old burger flipper, who was badly injured.
The young man’s mother, who works at the snack bar as a service assistant, is seen in despair in the footage as the agitated customer bites a chunk out of her son’s ear as he stands between the two of them.
The victim, Guilherme Souza Santos, and his colleague, Carlos Eduardo, told local media that the customer was already in a bad temper when he arrived at the snack bar.
Carlos Eduardo told the news site G1: “I was the guy he squared up to first. He head-butted me and injured my mouth. My head was left hurting.”
“As soon as he squared up to me, me friends came to help me, and that’s how the fight started. My injury wasn’t that bad, even though it hurts a lot. My friend’s was worse.”
Guilherme explained how the man “bit my ear, ripping it off and spitting it out” when he placed himself in between the man and his mother when their colleagues were trying to hold him back.
The man is a regular customer and was known to the staff at the snack bar. However, he had never previously attacked anyone.
Guilherme, who needed several stitches to his mutilated ear, told G1: “He was always an annoying drunk, but never to this extent.”
Following the attack, the snack bar issued a statement on social media condemning the assault on its workers. Carlos Eduardo, in turn, said: “I just want him to pay for what he did to us.”
It is not clear if the perpetrator was arrested following the incident.
