Strip club customer arrested after argument lands in parking lot

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

A Crazy Horse Too strip club customer was arrested by Metro Police after an argument that started shortly before 6:45 p.m. Monday at the club's bar spilled into the parking lot on Industrial Road, police said.

Police said the incident started when 39-year-old Royal Jackson of Las Vegas became "verbally aggressive" toward a bartender at the club.

When Jackson continued to argue, a club manager tried to calm him but Jackson continued to shout and yell at the bartender and the manager, police said.

As Jackson moved toward the door, he overturned several warming trays on a buffet table, upending a can of Sterno that sparked a small fire in the carpet that was quickly doused by club employees, police said.

Jackson then allegedly jumped on the bartender and the fight spilled onto the street, police said.

An officer at the scene said that club employees showed restraint when handling Jackson. Jackson is now charged with assault, police said.

The federal government has been investigating the Crazy Horse Too for more than a decade in a racketeering probe. According to indictments of two of the club's current or former employees, the club allegedly used strong-arm tactics on customers to squeeze as much money out of them as possible.

Those allegations are part of a lawsuit filed agains the club by Kirk Henry, a Kansas City man who suffered a broken neck in a parking lot over an argument at the Crazy Horse Too in 2001, is pending in District Court.

Police responded to the club about 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2001 after Henry said that a bouncer assaulted him in a dispute over an $88 bar tab. Henry was taken to a local hospital and underwent surgery on his neck.

Four months before the Henry altercation, Kenneth Kirtpatrick told police he and several friends went to the club May 24 for a bachelor party. Kirkpatrick said club security threatened him, knocked him to the ground and punched and kicked him. Kirkpatrick told police he was handcuffed and felt hands in his pockets.

Four Crazy Horse Too employees were charged with robbery, battery and conspiracy to commit robbery and coercion in that case.

The club's owner, Rick Rizzolo, has denied all of the customers' allegations.