A 19-year-old restaurant worker in downtown Minneapolis relied on his BJJ training to defend himself – during a violent encounter while taking out the trash behind his workplace.

Jezarious Sheldon, who has worked at the Lotus restaurant since he was 16, found himself in a sudden confrontation that was caught on surveillance video.
Sheldon was taking out garbage when a man began verbally harassing him:

When I walked past him for the first time, he said something like: “What are you doing out here, suburb boy?”

As the confrontation escalated, Sheldon noticed bystanders nearby but no one intervened:

There was a lady watching and she watched everything happen and he looks at the lady and he said: “Watch what I’m about to do to this b-word”, and that’s when he started pushing me against the window and then that’s when it turned into self-defense.

Drawing on his experience as a high school wrestler and a Brazilian jiu-jitsu student, Sheldon took action to protect himself:

And every time I would pick him up and have him in the air – he was what, like 6’2 – so he had a lot of room, so he would latch on to my shoulder while I was taking him down and every time I would have him on the ground he would bite my chest.

Even after being separated by bystanders, the man kept coming back at him.

Lotus co-owner Yoom Nguyen, whose family has operated the restaurant since 1984, says safety in the neighborhood has deteriorated:

I think safety is a huge issue here and people don’t tend to come out anymore to dine out to go eat because they don’t feel safe. I think that’s the biggest thing.

He acknowledged the challenges police face and called for more community involvement:

They need more help. The guys are short-staffed and there is only so much they can do.

I’ve always believed if more people came out – more people from the neighborhood – it tends to shoo away the bad people.

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