Maryland Teen Beaten Up During Donald Trump Student Protest
A pro-Trump, 15-year-old male reportedly wearing a Make American Great Again (MAGA) cap was beaten up by four assailants during an anti-Trump walkout by high school students in the suburban D.C. city of Rockville, Maryland.
Cops have so far arrested one suspect, age 17, and a police investigation is ongoing as detectives review video and presumably interview witnesses. The suspect faces a charge of second-degree assault.
Fortunately, the victim avoided serious injury although he reportedly left the scene in an ambulance to receive treatment at a local hospital.
The protest march by Richard Montgomery High School students yesterday morning was said to be otherwise peaceful.
Emotions are running high all across the country — particularly among the student cohort — in the aftermath of a presidential election that the mainstream news media insisted was a lock for Democrat Hillary Clinton but turned out to be an electoral college landslide for Republican Donald Trump.
“More than 100 students streamed out of the school Wednesday morning on the third day of student protests in the region against the election of Donald Trump. The assault was the first reported incident of violence at one of the student protests held this week in Montgomery County,” Bethesda Magazine explained.
While supporting the free-speech rights of students, the Montgomery County School Superintendent has asked students to protest on their own time and stay in class during normal school hours in part because of safety concerns, WUSA reported.
Washington, D.C., radio station WTOP provided more details about the incident involving the teen wearing the MAGA cap.
“Hundreds of students from Richard Montgomery High School were carrying signs reading, ‘Love Trumps Hate,’ and chanting near the Rockville courthouse on Maryland Avenue in a protest that began at about 10 a.m. when a 15-year-old boy wearing one of the Trump campaign’s ‘Make America Great Again’ hats was attacked by about four students. The group surrounded the teen, punching him repeatedly, then threw him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly in the ribs. It is not yet clear what led up to the incident, but Maj. Michael English with Rockville police said the victim was not the aggressor.”
Peaceful walk out in Richard Montgomery high school anti-trump pic.twitter.com/9kX4wHjAPJ
— saja (@redorangeprpylw) November 16, 2016
According to USA TODAY, the principal of the high school, Damon Monteleone, notified parents of what happened in the altercation, apparently suggesting that only two students were involved.
“‘Unfortunately, the otherwise peaceful protest was marred by a physical altercation between two students who had opposing political viewpoints,’ Monteleone wrote in a letter to parents on Wednesday. ‘This is unacceptable,’ he wrote, adding that the student would receive appropriate punishment based on the Montgomery County Public Schools Student Code of Conduct.”
President elect Donald Trump supporter gets in altercation at high school demonstration in Rockville Maryland pic.twitter.com/n1bK3FERpe
— Suzanne Kennedy (@suzanekennedyPR) November 16, 2016
Commenting on the incident, a Rockville police official said that “This student got into an altercation with other students. What we know is he had a red ball cap on. We do not know the student’s political views,” the Montgomery County Media detailed.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, a female California high school student was assaulted by another student in the schoolyard for expressing support for Trump on Instagram. The violent incident last Wednesday may have been the result of social media misunderstanding, however.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrJSnx2AKxQ
In an entirely separate incident that made national headlines, a Houston-area mother threw her young son out of the house after he voted for Donald Trump in a mock school election. The woman subsequently told authorities that the cellphone video was meant as a joke and she has apologized. Elsewhere in the Houston area, an 11-year-old boy was assaulted by classmates after voting for Trump in a mock election, Fox26 reported. Officials have suspended the other students pending an investigation, and the parents are pressing criminal charges.
[Featured Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]
