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The San Antonio-born star of Supernatural who’s set to fill Chuck Norris’ boots in a reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger was arrested early Sunday morning in Austin after allegedly assaulting two employees at a bar.
Officers arrived at Stereotype, a bar on Rio Grande Street, between 5th and 6th streets, a few minutes after 2 a.m. after a man outside the place flagged them down while pointing to someone else who was bleeding from the head.
Police found Padalecki standing outside, along with bystanders who were “making statements along the lines of ‘take this guy to jail.’” Padalecki was smiling and laughing, according to police, and appeared to be intoxicated.
When officers asked the 37-year-old actor to come speak with them, he replied “No, I don’t want to talk to you.” Later, after he walked up to an officer and touched the officer on the chest, police handcuffed him, frisked him for weapons and put him in the back of a patrol car.
According to the police report, an assistant manager at the bar told police that Padalecki, while intoxicated, had an argument with people inside the bar and the fight became physical. The manager, along with other employees, surrounded Padalecki and escorted him outside, according to court documents. The manager then walked back into the bar, but Padalecki followed him. Employees were trying to keep Padalecki outside when he struck the manager more than once in the face, the report says.
The general manager of the bar, who arrived after Padalecki had been escorted outside, saw Padalecki “put his hands on” a doorman as he was attempting to get back inside. The manager pulled Padalecki off the doorman, he told police, causing Padalecki to fall to the ground. When he got up, Padalecki punched the manager in the face, police said. Police found the manager bleeding from his left eyebrow.A third employee backed up his coworkers’ statements, telling police Padalecki was “the antagonist 100 percent.”
The actor was charged with two counts of assault with injury, a class A misdemeanor. Bail for Padalecki was set at $5,000 for each count. According to records, Padalecki was not detained at the Travis County Jail on Monday.
Padalecki is set to star in a reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger that’s currently in the works at CBS TV studios, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s Rick Porter. In it, he’ll play Cordell Walker, the fictional D-FW-based member of the Texas Rangers who Chuck Norris portrayed in the original show, which ran from 1993 to 2001. Dubbed Walker, the new show is currently being shopped around to potential buyers, according to Porter.
Padalecki gained fame as Dean Forester on Gilmore Girls, a role he played during the early 2000s. He now stars in the CW series Supernatural as Sam Winchester, the show’s demon-hunting lead. It’s now in the middle of its 15th — and final — season.