Local 12 News. At the present time, I have an urgent request that truly is of the utmost importance, a request that supersedes my entire being and applies to the integrity of all Americans. You have probably seen or heard of the video of students wearing MAGA gear supposedly "harassing," "bothering," and "jeering at" a Native American veteran. This is not true and taken entirely out of context. I am a student at Covington Catholic and was present at the occurrence. Here is what truly happened:

Every year, my school attends the March for Life in DC and afterward tours the city. Our chaperones and teachers told us to be at the Lincoln Memorial at 5:30 to be ready for the buses to pick us up. 5:30 came around and we were all gathered at the Memorial. As we are an all-male school that loves to get hyped up (hence our cheer section's name, "Colonel Crazies"), and as we have done for years prior, we decided to do some cheers to pass time. In the midst of our cheers, we were approached by a group of adults led by Nathan Phillips, with Phillips beating his drum. They forced their way into the center of our group. We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers, and so we clapped to the beat. He came to stand in front of one of my classmates who stood where he was, smiling and enjoying the experience. However, after multiple minutes of Mr. Phillips beating his drum directly in the face of my friend (mere centimerers from his nose), we became confused and started wondering what was happening. It was not until later that we discovered they would incriminate us as a publicity stunt. As a result, my friend faces expulsion for simply standing still and our entire school is being disparaged for a crime we did not commit. To reiterate, we did not partake in any physical or verbal abuse, did not chant "build the wall" or mock or anything of the like, and did not seek to incite violence.

After that initial occurrence, we were then verbally assaulted by four or five Aftican-American men who called us "******s" and berated one of our African-American students for being friends with us. The truth needs to come out. I pray that wou read this and can speak for us who are silenced by the media. Here is video evidence of Nathan Phillips approaching the group of Covington Catholic students, showing that we did not approach him but he approached us ( [link to twitter.com (secure)] ); the later half of the occurrence whosing Phillips group inciting debates as well as harassment of the students by another group ; and a second video of the harassment of students ( [link to twitter.com (secure)] ). As you can see by these videos, the true story is quite different from that portrayed by the media. A great injustice has been done, and it is our duty to see that the truth prevails. Additionally, Mr. Phillips has a history of claiming racial harassment. I am by no means disparaging his credibility, but this should be taken note of." https://m.imgur.com/r/The_Donald/IsG5FKQ