Scotty McCreery halted his concert after man in the audience allegedly assaulted a woman

SALT LAKE CITY — When a man allegedly struck a woman in the audience at a recent Scotty McCreery concert, the country singer halted the show and called for security to remove the man.

Video widely shared on social media shows the "American Idol" winner stopped the show at the Colorado State Fair for more than two minutes while authorities intervened.

"At a Scotty McCreery show? What are you doing?" the singer said on stage after pointing the alleged assailant out to security.

"Y'all let the cop know who hit the lady. That's absolutely unacceptable," McCreery said

Some on social media lauded McCreery for calling out the man's conduct and expressing concern for the woman.

One TikTok user who posted the video online wrote, "Can't get away with that at a country concert. Scotty is the (GOAT) for making sure everything was OK!"

When Kimmi Wolf, of the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, watched the video, her initial reaction was to note incidents of interpersonal violence that occur in public are shocking.

"I hope it never stops being shocking to us. My big concern, and I hope that people understand that when bystanders intervene, and I hope that they do, of course, but when they intervene in a domestic violence type of situation, it's very different than stopping some other form of violence," said Wolf.

If a bystander witnessed someone grappling with a mugger and chased them away, they could assume the victim would be safe from harm by that individual from that point on, she said.

Unanswered questions

"What people need to understand is that with interpersonal violence, intervention is always the first step, but intervention without resources for the victim, that causes complications and sometimes can possibly increase the danger," Wolf said.

The video does not show the incident or security's response. It is unclear how the parties are related, if so.

A statement by the Colorado Department of Agriculture confirmed only that an incident took place at the Scotty McCreery concert where a man assaulted a woman, and the performer stopped the show."

Many questions remain, Wolf said.

"We don't know if this is the person that she will come home to after the concert. You know, we don't know what that scenario is and how involved they are, so separating them in that moment, in that time, that does not necessarily halt their interaction," said Wolf.

Perhaps they are each on their own and each can walk away from one another and have no further contact.

If they share a household, have children together and can't afford to disassociate from one another, it's a far more complicated dynamic.

"There are so many more complicated questions that make this so different than any other type of bystander intervention situation," she said.

'Behind closed doors'

Some on social media speculated about what was happening between the man and woman in private if the alleged perpetrator behaved in this manner in public, surrounded by hundreds of other concertgoers.

Again, little has been confirmed about the incident or the relationship between the parties, but it is a concern, she said.

"When I hear from police officers that they had to physically separate the perpetrator from going after the victim, I just think, if they were willing to do that with law enforcement officers on the scene, what do you think this victim and their children were going through behind closed doors," she said.

"You can always speculate that it happens when there's more privacy, and it will happen at an even more shocking level of violence," she said.

Beyond the video going viral, Wolf said she hopes it serves as a focal point for national dialogue about domestic violence.

"It's always an opportunity to talk about it and understand the nuances and maybe delve a little bit deeper into: 'So what about the woman? What about anybody asking about her?'" Wolf said.

"So we've just got to make sure that the perspective is where it should be. Somebody had a very bad night and had a very difficult morning to sort out where they want to go from here," Wolf said.

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