Joseph Lordeon remembers going to the Elks Lodge in Redondo Beach on Cinco de Mayo and grabbing a beer with some buddies.
The 80-year-old real estate agent remembers making his way to a buffet table and then to a couch in the lobby, where he took a couple of bites of salad.
The next thing Lordeon remembers is waking up in an emergency room bed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where doctors were treating him for a large facial wound and rib injuries.
What happened to Lordeon seems undisputed. He allegedly was assaulted by the husband of the club’s exalted ruler. Security video of the attack bears that out.
But what remains in dispute are the events leading up to the battery.
The Elks Lodge where 80-year-old Joseph Lordeon allegedly was assaulted sits on the edge of picturesque Veterans Park in Redondo Beach. (Photo from Google Maps)
Trouble starts at private party
Lordeon’s ordeal began about 4:30 p.m. May 5 during his visit to the Elks Lodge, which is housed in a nondescript brick building on the eastern edge of picturesque, oceanfront Veterans Park. Club members have been gathering there for nearly 70 years.
The lodge features a large members lounge on the south side of the facility with flat-screen televisions, two pool tables, shuffleboard tables, and a fully stocked bar maintained by professional bartenders.
In an interview with the Southern California News Group, Lordeon said he drank an India pale ale with some fellow Elks and was ready to leave about 15 minutes later. On his way out, he said, a lodge member invited him to have some food at a private party attended by about 45 people in another bar at the north end of the lodge.
Lordeon was handed a plate, scooped up some salad from a buffet table, and walked away after a woman he didn’t know said he wasn’t supposed to be there. Lordeon replied that he had been invited, thanked the party revelers for their kindness, and, clutching the plate, ambled to the lobby.
Cold-cocked moments later
Almost as soon as he sat down, he said, Elks member Lamont Steele, who is married to Exalted Ruler Nashana Steele, snuck up and cold-cocked him on the left side of the head.
“It took less than 10 seconds,” Lordeon said. “I didn’t see anything.”
He said he didn’t know Lamont Steele, but that “I had seen him in the lodge from time to time. He’s a big dude.”
After the attack, Lordeon said, Elks member Karen Shonka, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cold-case homicide detective who was seated next to him on the sofa, called 911 for an ambulance and removed bits of salad from his mouth so he wouldn’t choke.
Shonka did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Arrested 2 weeks later
More than two weeks later, on May 20, records show Redondo Beach police booked Lamont Dominic Steele, 52, of Inglewood into the Los Angeles County jail on suspicion of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and criminal behavior targeted at someone 65 or older.
He remains in custody on $110,000 bail. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case.
Nashana Steele, a licensed speech pathologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District who joined the joined the Elks in 2018, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Police have declined to release information about the assault. However, a seven-page, heavily redacted investigative report obtained by the Southern California News Group offers details. The report was based on police interviews with witnesses.
Was Elks leader shoved?
A woman — presumably Nashana Steele — told police she asked Lordeon to leave the private party, noting he had not been paying his lodge membership dues. She alleges Lordeon refused to leave and shoved her with his right upper arm and shoulder, reaggravating a pinched nerve in her chest, according to the report.
Lordeon denies touching the woman.
The report states Lamont Steele was on the patio at the lodge smoking a cigar with some guests when someone told him a man had assaulted his wife. He then went looking for the man and soon found him.
“Lamont observed the guy who allegedly assaulted his wife sitting on a couch,” the police report states.
Lamont Steele reportedly asked the man if he had touched his wife, to which the man replied “f— you.” This upset him further, prompting him to allegedly punch the man once with a closed fist, the report said.
Lordeon fell to the ground unconscious and the assailant claimed to have slapped him to wake him up to tell him that he needed to leave the lodge, according to the report.
Police: Assault unprovoked
A Redondo Beach police officer who viewed the lodge’s security video said in the report that the assault was unprovoked, adding that Lordeon was punched three times, picked up from the couch and pushed to the floor. The attacker then stood over Lordeon, slapped him with an open hand, left the lodge and drove home.
Elks Lodge members were permitted to watch video of the assault last week as part of an ongoing internal investigation, said Lordeon, who did not attend the viewing on the advice of his attorney.
Officials with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, headquartered in Chicago, declined to discuss the assault because it is a criminal matter.
‘No place for acts of violence’
“The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks has always considered our lodges to be places where members and their guests can feel comfortable and enjoy social opportunities in a caring and congenial environment,” spokesperson Rick Gathen said in an email Monday. “There is no place for acts of violence within our lodges and the reports as alleged are both troubling and unacceptable.”
Founded in 1868, the BPOE has nearly 1 million members who gather at 2,000 lodges across the U.S. and abroad. The Elks provide charitable services aimed at building stronger communities, sponsoring college scholarships, youth basketball teams, drug awareness programs and the like.
According to an Elks newsletter from 2021, Nashana Steele described herself as “a bit shy, but I am very friendly.” She noted that she and her husband, who has worked as the lodge’s bar manager, have four children. “We love to travel, hang out with friends, and spend time at the lodge,” she said.
As for Lordeon, he said he returned to the lodge for the first time since the assault to grab a hamburger on Memorial Day. The mood was conciliatory. A sympathetic club member, whom he didn’t know, offered to buy him a beer.
Nevertheless, Lordeon said the attack has left him shaken, and he plans to sue the Elks. “I am over the anger part,” he said. “I thought it (the lodge) was a safe place. It’s just bizarre.”
