A Harvard researcher was reportedly left bloodied and beaten by a gang of loud, unruly teens after asking them to keep quiet at a movie screening in Boston.
Thiago Rentz, a 35-year-old Harvard researcher from Brazil, was watching the hit horror flick “Weapons” early Thursday at the AMC Boston Common 19 when he asked five teenagers in the theater to quiet down several times — before the group allegedly began pummeling him, according to NBC Boston.
“They were there disturbing all of the people, clapping and screaming all the time,” Rentz told the outlet.
“I asked them for respect. I asked them to leave the theater because we just wanted to watch the movie.”
When Rentz tried to leave the theater, he said, the teens wouldn’t let him exit.
“They made like a wall so I tried to pass to leave and they couldn’t let me pass,” the researcher said, adding that his friend was screaming for help.
“They just punched me. I didn’t fight back. I was like scared and then I just faced the wall, and I just protected my face in my head, but the target was obviously my head because they were punching my head and my face.”
Images of Rentz following the alleged beatdown show his left eye badly bruised, his mouth bloodied and one of his hands smeared with blood.
“It was one, me against five,” he explained.
The group quickly fled as the victim’s friend searched desperately for help. She eventually found a security guard, who called authorities, according to the outlet.
Boston police arrived around 12:45 a.m. after the theater had closed. Rentz was left with a minor injury to his nose, a police report obtained by the outlet said.
“Harassment is not good in a public space. … This is absurd, so I think they need to hire more people to work as security,” Rentz said.
He is working to ensure that security cameras are being checked so the teens, who were all dressed in black but had their faces exposed, are identified by authorities.
“I want the attackers to be identified because they need to be punished,” the researcher said.
The unsettling incident is the latest in a slew of recent teen-led violent attacks across the US.
In May, a group brutally beat two girls in a Queens park with a baseball bat — and even shaved the head of one of the victims in a horrific, caught-on-video display that a relative said was like an attempted “execution.”
Earlier that month, hundreds of youths descended upon a New Jersey mall in a meet-up that was reportedly planned on TikTok and led to a massive brawl. The melee led to seven arrests of minors.
Several businesses and retail chains have begun implementing “teen chaperone policies” in hopes of curbing juvenile delinquency.
On Wednesday, an Ohio Chick-fil-A location posted a “teen chaperone policy” on Facebook declaring that anyone 17 and under “must be accompanied by a parent, guardian, or adult chaperone” over 21 — adding that “unaccompanied minors may be asked to leave.”
A Brooklyn Target banned kids under 18 from shopping at the store in March without adult supervision to curb delinquent behavior.
And a crime-ridden Brooklyn McDonald’s also began carding customers in February and forbidding anyone under 20 to enter without a parent or proper ID.
