Johnathan Scaletty and his wife were supposed to be singing along and swaying as Luke Combs performed their wedding song live.
But they never got to hear the country music star sing Forever After All to fans at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday night.
Instead, Scaletty, 34, of Lee’s Summit, said he was randomly attacked in the stadium parking lot, then made to wait about an hour for an ambulance to arrive.
“It seemed like we weren’t helped or protected or safe at all even after we were reaching out for it,” he said Sunday, after he was released from the hospital.
A spokesperson with the Kansas City Police Department on Sunday evening said they could not immediately confirm Scaletty’s story or timeline, including how long it may have taken first responders to arrive, because no one was in the office to procure the data. The Star has also requested a copy of the incident report.
The man’s concerns are the latest in an ongoing conversation about slow emergency response times in Kansas City, where police have said there’s a shortage of 911 dispatchers and the mayor has called wait times “terrifying and unacceptable.”
In late May, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said his sister was on hold with 911 dispatchers for five minutes before getting help for their mother.
“Despite budget increases, the problem remains. Expect action, including further regional and intracity agency collaboration, more pay increases, better technology deployment, and more,” Lucas wrote on Twitter on May 25. “Efficient response post dispatch is great, but less useful after a 5-min answering machine.”
For Scaletty, the wait was three times as long, he said.
He and his wife got to the parking lot around 4 p.m. Saturday where they paid $60 for parking and then met up with his older sister. As they tore down the tailgate to start heading into the stadium around 6 p.m., Scaletty and his wife opted to wait out a burst of rain from in their car.
That’s when someone started opening their vehicle, Scaletty said. He turned around and saw upwards of a dozen people he estimated were in their late 20s or early 30s standing behind his car, laughing.
He shut the door with a button and told them to stop it. They laughed, then did it again, this time also opening the rear passenger door.
Scaletty said he then got out of the vehicle to talk to them. Almost immediately, he said, one person grabbed his legs and another grabbed his throat and started severely beating him.
One of the men swung his fist at Scaletty’s wife as she tried to pull him off her husband, he said; thankfully, the stranger missed her face but took with him a fistful of her hair. Eventually, the group walked away, laughing, leaving Scaletty on the ground with a foot broken in multiple places.
Scaletty said he called 911 about 6:15 p.m. as his wife frantically tried to help him. He was on hold for about 15 minutes with 911 before he could get someone on the phone, he said.
“I called the cops and it just rang and rang and rang and rang,” Scaletty said.
Arrowhead Security was the first on the scene. They came in a golf cart and stayed the whole time. He said he was more impressed by them than by the police department. Kansas City police arrived about 10 minutes later, followed by the fire department. The ambulance pulled up about an hour after Scaletty initially called 911, he said.
Scaletty has been to Arrowhead before, for Chiefs games, but he’s not sure he wants to go back.
“There’s no safety at all. It’s scary,” he said of the parking lot area. “I don’t want to go back to something like that.”
Scaletty was released from the ER around 6 a.m. Sunday, with bruises and cuts still coloring his face and neck, but returned to the hospital twice because of continued ankle pain. Now he’s awaiting surgery to address the three breaks and the dislocation in his left ankle.
He fears his hospital bills, which include an ambulance ride and three trips to the ER, will total in the thousands. That’s on top of the cost of the tickets he and his wife never got to use. The parents of two young children decided to splurge and spent about $1,000 on the concert for what they hoped would be a special night.
Scaletty is also waiting to hear if anyone will be arrested. He said Arrowhead staff told him there should be security footage of what happened. He hasn’t yet heard whether it has been obtained for the investigation. Spokespeople for the stadium did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
“It’s mind-blowing to me that I don’t know if these people will even be caught,” he said.
Scaletty’s biggest concern remains on safety.
He said he’s asked KCPD for a case number, but hasn’t received one yet. On Sunday morning, an officer called his wife as he was being discharged and asked him to send pictures of his injuries. Scaletty said he has not heard anything since.
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