According to Duncan Allen, the club’s DJ, Casa Diablo had a dull night last Sunday, with only about six people attending the vegan strip club in Northwest Portland to watch dancers perform.
However, as Allen was standing in the DJ booth and a woman started stabbing him in the back, as seen on camera, the peaceful evening took a sudden and violent turn.
Allen’s lung damage keeps him in the hospital a week later. Peyton Lathan, 29, a dancer at Casa Diablo, is incarcerated on three felony charges.
Allen remarked, “It was such a random act.” So unprovoked
According to Johnny Diablo, the club’s proprietor, Allen and Lathan had both worked at Casa Diablo for roughly ten years, Allen regularly and Lathan sometimes.
The DJ and the dancer knew one another and had a friendly and professional connection, according to Allen and KL on Sunday.
Allen, who is recovering from the stabbing that caused his lung to collapse and the ensuing surgeries, stated on the phone Sunday from Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, “I don’t really remember most girls’ music.”
“I usually just play it from a playlist they provide me,” he added.
They did exchange ideas, however, and Lathan claimed that she had a taste for sensuous, older music.
Allen adds, “She gave me a nice tip.” When she entered, she even embraced me. She was incredibly sweet and kind.
KL stated that although Lathan occasionally exhibited odd behavior, there was no proof that she was violent, and the club had never experienced an event similar to the one that occurred on December 8.
According to documents, Lathan entered a guilty plea to criminal mischief for property destruction last summer. In that instance, Lathan was sentenced to pay more than $1,000 in reparations and undergo a mental health evaluation as part of her probation.
According to KL, the club was unaware of Lathan’s legal issues.
According to KL, security footage from Sunday, December 8, showed Lathan in the dressing room for around ten minutes, trembling and occasionally crying.
KL provided The Oregonian/OregonLive with a video of what he claimed transpired next.
In it, Allen cannot see the woman standing behind the DJ booth. She seems to take something out of her sleeve after a minute, then rush at Allen before he turns around and she flees while screaming at him.
Allen claimed, “I felt like a really big guy punched me in the back four times as hard as he possibly could.”
He spun around, scanning Lathan for his attacker. Then he claimed to have seen her.
Allen added, “And she’s holding the knife, and I was like, Oh my God, I just got stabbed.”
He said that his colleagues hurried to his rescue. While someone dialed 9-1-1, dancers assisted him to a peaceful location and applied pressure to the wound.
Allen claims that it took six minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
“I would have died if it had been 10,” he claimed.
Allen claimed that after being brought to Legacy Emanuel, he had surgery for a collapsed lung.
He referred to the medical professionals and dancers who assisted him as real-life superheroes and said they were responsible for saving his life.
More than $7,000 has been received thus far through a GoFundMe to aid in Allen’s recuperation.
Court documents state that when police arrived following the incident, they were inspecting the club’s grounds when they saw Lathan hiding in the bushes. They put her into jail without any problems.
According to an affidavit regarding the arrest, police discovered two knives close to her, one of which had a crimson smear on the tip.
According to the record, Lathan repeatedly stated that she was pleading insanity while she was being arrested.
According to the complaint, Lathan told officers that the man was a drug dealer and that there would be no traces of alcohol or narcotics in her body when she was placed in a cell.
According to Allen, he does not deal drugs.
Lathan is arrested and charged with felony assault and unauthorized use of a weapon at the Multnomah County Detention Center. A request for comment from her court-appointed attorney was not immediately answered.
With a tube in his chest, Allen is still in the hospital, awaiting the cessation of fluid loss from his lung so he may return home and heal, he said.
He is unsure at this time whether he would go back to the club where he has been a DJ for ten years.
Allen remarked, “I have to leave the hospital.” For roughly half an hour, I need to close my eyes, embrace my dog, be grateful that I’m alive, let my feet contact the grass, and gaze up at the sky.
Lizzy Acker writes the advice column and studies culture and life. Why, Tho?You can contact her at [email protected] or 503-221-8052.
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