Police: Man arrested for throwing fatal punch
Elias Sanchez accused of negligent manslaughter, cops say
Five days after he was knocked unconscious outside a Pembroke Pines sports bar and smacked his head on the sidewalk, a 26-year-old man has died from a brain hemorrhage, police say.
The aggressor was a North Miami Beach man who argued with the victim while leaving Big Dawgs Sports Bar after closing time on Dec. 4, according to an affidavit to arrest. It appears the men did not know each other.
Elias Sanchez,
24, was arrested on a charge of negligent manslaughter at 10:50 a.m. Wednesday in Miami-Dade County and was transferred to the Broward Main Jail, Amanda Conwell, spokeswoman for the police department, said.
Jovane Allen’s mother said her son regained consciousness and spoke to her at the hospital and was scheduled for surgery before he died Sunday. She had been hopeful her son would survive.
“He was talking to me but he was in horrible pain,” Andra McFarlane said. “He was answering questions about what he remembered and he could read the clock. And then I don’t know what went wrong in there at the hospital. It’s really hard to talk about it.”
Allen, of Miramar, grew up in South Florida and worked for the past five years or so as a chef at The Pub, in the Shops at Pembroke Gardens, his mother told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Allen would have turned 27 on Dec. 27, she said.
“And now he don’t live to see his birthday because this culprit took my son away from me,” McFarlane said. “I can’t tell you what happened. I wasn’t there. It’s crazy. I don’t even know what the conflict was about.”
Part of the altercation was captured on surveillance video. It shows Allen leave the bar with three others. They remained out front talking. Sanchez leaves the bar with a female companion about 30 minutes later.
Various conversations seem to go on and people come in and out of the view of the camera, according to the affidavit.
When Allen, Sanchez and a woman come back into view, they are clearly having an argument. Sanchez yells and “alternates his verbal aggression between Allen and [the woman], pacing frantically and pausing to yell more,” the affidavit said. “Sanchez, still visibly angry, adjust his pants as if to prepare himself to fight.”
Sanchez cocked his fist and punched an unsuspecting Allen in the chin. “Allen immediately falls backward and strikes his head without bracing himself and is visibly incapacitated,” the affidavit said.
A witness took a picture of Sanchez and noted his license plate number as he drove away from the scene.
Allen was taken to a hospital where he took a turn for the worse two days later on Thursday. He was pronounced brain dead at 6:09 p.m. Sunday.
Witnesses picked Sanchez’s picture out of a photo line-up.