Dad goes on rampage in topless bar
Posted on 12/18/2002 1:09:19 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Dad goes on rampage in topless bar
Man says he did it to protect teen daughter
12/18/2002
WICHITA FALLS - Clad in camouflage, Lee Wayne Lawrence burst through the doors of Maximus Gentleman's Club, afraid he would see his teenage daughter swinging bare-breasted around a gold pole on one of the stages.
Mr. Lawrence strode across the dimly lighted room and the black carpet with glowing pink and purple swirls. It was early - there was only one customer inside, and the dancers were still in their dressing room.
Police say Mr. Lawrence pulled out an 8-inch hunting knife and began slashing tables, leopard-print chairs and a pair of 7-foot-tall bubble-water lamps.
Manager Vic Robinson shouted to an employee across the room to lock the dancers' dressing room door and hustle them out a back door. Mr. Robinson dashed into his office, grabbed the only weapon he could find, a large ice scoop, and walked back into the bar.
Mr. Lawrence asked for a drink. As Mr. Robinson put the malt liquor bottle down, he glimpsed a plastic container hanging from a string around Mr. Lawrence's neck, partly hidden by a jacket, and guessed it was a homemade bomb.
 Wichita Falls police officers escorted Lee Wayne Lawrence from a topless bar on Dec. 7, where police say he pulled out an 8-inch hunting knife and began slashing tables. Mr. Lawrence's teenage daughter had applied for a job at the club. (HARRY TONEMAH / Wichita Falls Times Record) |
Seconds later, several police officers walked through the door. Mr. Lawrence surrendered nearly an hour later.
He said he never meant to hurt anyone and knew he could get arrested - or killed - by police during the incident, which was recorded on the club's surveillance cameras.
"I would do that for my daughter if I could get her out of there," Mr. Lawrence said a few days later, from behind a wall of glass in a visiting room at the Wichita County Jail.
"She needs to realize people love her," he said. "I love my daughter more than I love life itself."
Mr. Lawrence, 41, was released from prison in February after serving nine years for assaulting a police officer in Blanco County in 1993. He also served five years for selling drugs in Blanco County in 1986, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
After the Dec. 7 rampage in the topless club, he was charged with aggravated assault and jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail. Authorities were considering a federal charge of carrying an explosive device. They say the container around his neck contained gunpowder.
Mr. Lawrence has been kept in solitary confinement under suicide watch because he has acted highly agitated, said Wichita County Sheriff Tom Callahan.
Kera Lawrence wasn't in the bar the night of her father's rampage. She had applied for a job at Maximus on Dec. 5, and she auditioned the next night.
Her father showed up at the club that night, too. She was done dancing by then but spotted him from the shadows. She pointed him out to club employees and warned that he was crazy. He left a few minutes later.
Mr. Lawrence sat in the parking lot and watched the bar and the motel next door. Later at his house, he said, he argued with his daughter over her stripping job.
Neither Ms. Lawrence nor her mother could be located for comment. Mr. Lawrence wouldn't reveal the mother's name or say where she lived.
Mr. Lawrence said he was angry that topless clubs hire those under age 21, even though the law allows the hiring of any dancer 18 or older.
He said he erupted in the bar "to get somebody to help. I'd do it 100 times over. It's not just for my daughter, but for all the other daughters out there."
Mr. Robinson, the club manager, said he turned Ms. Lawrence down as a dancer because her identification, listing her age as 18, appeared to be fake.
Maximus is one of two strip clubs in Wichita Falls, a city of 100,000 about 125 miles northwest of Dallas, near the Oklahoma border. Police say problems are rare at the club, which sits in a commercial area near a grocery store, fast-food restaurant, dry-cleaning store and self-storage business.
At night, a pink neon strip of light outlines the top of the one-story building, and fake palm trees are illuminated outside.
"We don't run a whorehouse here," Mr. Robinson said. "We run an entertainment business."
Maybe if he had spent those years being a parent she would be looking for another line of work.
Three word name and WAYNE in the middle..a ticking timebomb if I ever saw one.
Yeah, right.
That is the story given by the pimps, oops I meant owners, of this joint. I don't believe it for a second.
The guy is mental - no award is deserved.
I guarantee that this place is a center for prostitution of under-age girls which would have undoubtedly exploited his daughter if he had not shown up.
Didn't comprehend much of the story, did you.
This is why the Mafia and other mobsters run these dives in the first place.
You didn't say that. You said, "prostitution of under-age girls." You said, "would have undoubtedly exploited his daughter."
There's no indication the daughter was under-age. She sought them out seriously undermining any "exploitation" hyperbole.
I quit. Why am I wasting my time? Geez you didn't even read the article.
To quote from the article: "Mr. Robinson, the club manager, said he turned Ms. Lawrence down as a dancer because her identification, listing her age as 18, appeared to be fake."
Please don't post to me ever again.
Hey cool, somebody else is into my theory of middle names for nutcases and death row inmates. My theory is when the media wants to mark a man as a loon they post his entire name, particularly if that middle name is Wayne, Lamar, Lee etc. This will usually be accompanied by the one driver's license photo of you looking like you just spent the last several years hacking babies to death with an axe. If they invoke the dreaded "nickname" you're finished- ie Lee Wayne "Snuffy" Lawrence.
I get a kick out of kidding my uncle (a two time convict) that he should never kill anyone because his name is "Calvin Lamar 'Bingo' ---(last name)--- ;-)
You're probably right, but I'll guarantee you one thing; it's going to be very difficult for his daughter to find a job in any strip club in that area. He may win after all.
Thank God, someone on this thread who has it right. There is a poster who carries on "the manager turned down the daughter's request for employment because she was under 21 and appeared to have a fake ID" who does not comprehend English.
In fact when the police arrived, the pimp-manager claimed he had never hired the girl and that "We don't run a whorehouse here," comments of microscopic veracity. If anyone has even the most minimal command of language, the article clearly states that the girls fake ID asserted she was 18, indicating to rational, non-demented readers that she was younger.
As for the father...He is obviously a lunatic, but he is still a father trying in his own primitive way to stop a small town whorehouse from recruiting his daughter. The police should investigate the "strip club" and release the dad. These small town criminal gangs generally pay off the cops however.
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