The violence on screen at Comic-con burst through to real life in Hall H on Saturday afternoon.
A fight broke out at the rear of the cavernous packed hall just as the “Resident Evil: Aftermath” panel had finished. At least two film fans, one reportedly in a Harry Potter T-shirt, were stabbed with a pen. One suffered a bloody laceration between the eye and the temple, a convention center worker told TheWrap. The other was stabbed in the leg and was taken away by ambulance on a stretcher.
A dispatcher with the San Diego police said the fight broke out over hard-to-get seats at the height of Comic-Con's main room programming. The victim who suffered facial injuries was not badly hurt, and the man with the leg injury was taken to the hospital.
As the crowd jumped on seats to see what was happening, security lead at least one of the participants out in handcuffs. The convention center employee said three people were led away in handcuffs; none of those were among the injured.
(Movie blogger George "El Guapo," of latinoreview.com, caught some video outside — watch it here.)
In a room full of bloggers, journalists and the well-wired, a flurry of reports surfaced instantly on Twitter.
"So if you didn't already know, dude got stabbed in the eye with a pen. Fighting over … seats. Everything delayed," tweeted Kris Tapley, a writer for incontention.com.
"Confirmed: someone was arrested," wrote Collider.com's Steven Weintraub. "Was just told someone was stabbed in the face in hall h. Blood def. Everywhere."
San Diego police and California Highway Patrol officers lingered around the area where the incident occurred, toward the back of the room, stage left. The dispatcher who spoke with TheWrap could not confirm whether anyone had been arrested or booked, but described it as "a minor incident."
Maybe so, but it caused the afternoon's panels to be long delayed. Officials brought the house lights up and began showing trailers, imploring people to return to their seats.
The panel for the comedy "Paul" finally took the stage, and its stars immediately began the Q&A session after footage was shown, even as police continued to talk with witnesses in the back of the hall. No one from the panel or Comic-Con addressed what had happened.
But when "Cowboys & Aliens" came to the Hall H stage, director Jon Favreau announced the star of the show last: Harrison Ford, who was led to the stage in cuffs by security guards, much to the delight of the Comic-Con crowd.
