In the wee hours of the morning on Independence Day, 16-year-old Hunter Richard of Texas posted a video to Twitter that has gone viral at lightning speed.
And for good reason.
In the video, a grown man verbally assaults the teen and his friends at a San Antonio Whataburger — and the man hurls a racial slur at the group as well.
But unlike other instances of verbal harassment against Trump supporters, this incident didn’t stop with words.
The boys’ attacker threw a drink in their faces, ripped the MAGA hat off Richard’s head — pulling his hair in the process — and left the restaurant with the hat in his hands.
And to add insult to injury, the attacker said as he walked out with the hat, “This is gonna go right in my f***ing fireplace, b****.”
A police report was filed, according to Fox 29 San Antonio.
(Warning: Strong language appears in the video below.)
So went out for a 2am snack and my friend (wearing a MAGA hat) had his hat stolen and a drink thrown in his face (and mine, you can see my arms on the left of the video) pic.twitter.com/B3QjBFIxPk
— Brax? (@brxpug) July 4, 2018
“I support my president and if you don’t, let’s have a conversation about it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about politics is more productive for the entire [thing] rather than taking my hat and yelling subjective words to me,” the teen told the San Antonio outlet, displaying far more maturity than his attacker had demonstrated.
In the past few months, similar incidents have received massive media attention. But this one ratchets up the violence and the cowardice of the attacker to disturbing levels.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and her family were asked to leave The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington recently. After doing so, the family was followed to a restaurant across the street — where the harassment continued.
Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was verbally assaulted in a restaurant and later protesters showed up at her home to continue their protests on her front sidewalk.
Pam Bondi, the Florida attorney general — along with her boyfriend — were verbally assaulted in a movie theater.
A group of protesters at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., also harassed Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, along with her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.), as the couple were coming out of a building after an event recently.
The attacker was promptly fired from his job at Rumble, a bar in San Antonio.
And now, people like the man at the Whataburger are moving on to more defenseless targets: kids.
The attacker was promptly fired from his job at Rumble, a bar in San Antonio.
The bar was flooded with expressions of praise after it posted on Facebook an update about the man’s employment.
The cowardice of this attack cannot be emphasized enough. These were kids having a snack at a fast-food restaurant. Where’s the common decency?
In a statement released Thursday, Whataburger said that none of its employees witnessed the incident.
“We were shocked to see this video and certainly don’t condone this type of customer behavior in our restaurants,” the statement said. “To be clear, no Whataburger employees were involved or witnessed the incident, and we ask that questions be directed to San Antonio PD as we continue supporting their efforts.”
Late Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. stepped in to help right a wrong. The president’s son — who introduced his father at the Big Sky rally in Great Falls, Montana — tweeted a request for the teen’s contact information. And he promised to send a replacement hat signed by the president himself.
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1014999693447663616″>https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1014999693447663616
No one within my friends wishes harm upon the man who approached us last night. We didn't post it in hopes it would blow up, we posted it looking for him and we did find him. Please stop calling us racist piles of filth because we got a drink thrown at us.
— Brax? (@brxpug) July 5, 2018
Picking on a teen? Seriously?!? He's wearing a hat and eating at Whataburger. Disgusting. He needs to be held accountable.
— Gina (@bluelinetta) July 5, 2018
Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette. This story has been updated.
(photo credit, article image: Whataburger Frisco…, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Jonesdr77)
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