by Joshua Gill
Students from Covington Catholic High School spoke out against the media smear campaign against them, saying they’ve endured death threats and have been doxxed multiple times.
Two Covington students identified as Sam and Grant spoke out in a video posted to social media by high school junior C.J. Pearson, denouncing the media’s portrayal of their peers as racist aggressors and claiming “several media outlets blatantly lied” about their confrontation with American Indian activist Nathan Phillips.
The students said they and their Kentucky school received multiple threats, including threats of shooting, arson and bombs, and that people exposed the personal information of Covington students online.
“There have been many threats against our lives, against our parents,” Sam said. “Some of these threats include that we should be locked in the school and it should be burned to the ground, the school being bombed, school shooting threats.”
“It’s really scary. I know that a lot of people are scared to go to school tomorrow and won’t be attending because of what could happen. There have been cops there ever since the incident and I think there will be a lot more tomorrow,” he added.
Grant claimed people on social media targeted Covington students indiscriminately, not distinguishing between those who were present for the confrontation with Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial and those who weren’t. He said many Covington students have been doxxed and exposed to virulent threats.
“A lot of the negativity and the hate surrounding this event comes from people on social media doxxing people that were at the event,” Grant said. “I myself wasn’t even present, but I’m very vocal about defending my school and my peers and I have been doxxed on three separate occasions.”
“This has led to a tsunami of hateful messages and threats and everything above,” he added.
Sam claimed he and another of his friends from school had also been doxxed, but added that several of the people responsible for exposing the students’ personal information online had deleted their posts when it came to light that Phillips had lied about his encounter with the students.
Videos surfaced showing Phillips and his companions actually approached and confronted the students after a black supremacist group called the Black Hebrew Israelites accosted them with racial slurs and profanity.
“There are real consequences for these actions,” Sam said. “And it all spews from a 30-second clip taken out of a two-hour video out of context, and people jumping to conclusions before the full story was released. And nobody did their research and it’s now showing.”
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Joshua Gill is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Joshua on Twitter.
Photo “Covington Catholic Students” by officer Sweetchuck.
