The man accused of punching a 12-year-old street dancer has turned himself in

Police in Missouri have arrested a man accused of sucker punching a 12-year-old boy while he was dancing, causing him to bleed from his head and his nose.

The incident happened just before midnight on Friday, July 3, according to the Cape Girardeau Police Department. Micheal “Crank” Curry, a dance instructor and owner of Fingerprint Urban Dance Studio, and two of his young students were in downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri, dancing.

Curry has been taking students to street dance in downtown Cape Girardeau for the last four or five years — never with any problems, he told CNN.

They’d been street dancing downtown for about an hour when a dark-colored car stopped in the street, and an adult male, later identified by police as 27-year-old Cedric Charles Moore, stepped out of the vehicle, Curry said.

A video of the incident, part of a Facebook livestream that Curry said he sets up every time they street dance downtown, has been viewed more than 970,000 times. It depicts Moore dancing toward the group. At this point, Curry said he thought little of it as he said oftentimes people will get out of their cars and dance with the kids, or even tip them. Plus, he said there’s a bar across the street with bouncers who keep an eye on the group.

But then, Moore suddenly punched the boy in the head, sending him falling to the sidewalk while Moore fled back to the car and drove away, according to police and the video of the incident.

The boy, who stood back up in the video and was briefly doubled over and appeared dazed, was bleeding from his head and nose, according to the Cape Girardeau Police Department. Curry told CNN he suffered a concussion.

“(It’s) traumatizing to watch, let alone be a victim of it,” he said.

Curry initially ran after Moore but turned around and attended to his student when he realized there were two others in the car.

Police officers were able to identify Moore after viewing video footage of the incident and issued a warrant for his arrest, according to police. Officers attempted to find Moore at his residence and at other locations he was known to frequent but were “met with a lack of cooperation from the suspect’s friends and family,” police said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Moore turned himself in to the Scott County Sheriff’s Office in Benton, Missouri. Police said he is being charged with second-degree felony assault and first-degree felony child endangerment. His bond was set at $50,000 cash only.

“The Cape Girardeau Police Department hopes that this arrest offers a sense of peace and security to the young victim and his family. Our department would also like to thank the large volume of information we received from the public on Cedric Moore. Your concern for decency and your tips on his whereabouts left this violent suspect with nowhere else to hide and helped to lead to his peaceful surrender,” Sgt. Joey Hann said in a statement to CNN.

Curry told CNN he didn’t think they were necessarily targeted, and that it may have just been a joke or an opportunity Moore had seized. Whatever the reason, he said he’s not going to let the negativity stop the kids from doing what they love.

“We can’t let one negative thing destroy everything we love to do, and I’m not going to let my kids miss out on something they do love to do because of fear,” he said.

Curry said he’s not going to force the kids to go if they don’t want to, but he said he wants “to show them that not everyone in the world is bad.”

And the response from the community has been helpful, too, he said. People from across the city have been reaching out, even setting up a fundraiser on Facebook for the boy and the studio. Even non-locals in the dance world have checked in and made sure the group is OK.

“So I really commend our local community and our dance community for reaching out and showing us that they care,” Curry said. “That’s the culture we grow up in.”