LAUDERDALE LAKES, Fla. — A South Florida family is suing after a violent attack outside an Aldi grocery store in Lauderdale Lakes left a 60-year-old man with life-altering injuries.
Bruce Reese had gone to the store last October with his pit bull when surveillance video shows him walking through the aisles before getting into a verbal confrontation with another customer, who was reportedly upset about the leashed dog.
According to the family, that man waited for Reese to exit the store -- then sucker-punched him.
“He was on life support in a coma for weeks -- he is now profoundly brain damaged and he’s incapable of living anything close to a normal independent life,” said family attorney Justin Shapiro.
After a dayslong manhunt, detectives arrested Dandrea Johnson on a felony battery charge.
Reese has since been released from the hospital, but his son says his recovery has been devastating.
“Every day is ‘Groundhog Day,’ trying to get him to remember things and get him to remember who he is,” said Brandon Reese. “Things happening and what’s going on in the world around him.”
Now, the family has filed a civil lawsuit against the Aldi store where the attack happened, along with Johnson and DF Security, the private company contracted to provide security at that location.
“He should’ve chimed in to de-escalate the situation. He should’ve asked the assailant to calm down or threaten to call the police. He did nothing,” Shapiro said. “And by doing nothing, that emboldened the assailant to take things to the next level.”
“If Aldi would’ve just done their job in what the standard was for security -- my dad would be the same,” Brandon Reese added.
The lawsuit is seeking more than $30 million in damages. It cites crime in the surrounding area and a failure by security and store employees to intervene during the confrontation as reasons the store should be considered negligent.
“We have to take care of him like he’s our child,” Brandon Reese said. “It’s a whole new weight in life I never thought we would experience.”
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
