Viral video showing young boy pulling up an American flag from a lawn and throwing it the ground as woman with him looks on and does nothing sparks outrage
- The clip of the unnamed child was posted online by Ricky Lee on July 8
- It showed a little boy on a scooter stopping to rip up the American flag
- He pulled it from the lawn then threw it on the ground and scooted away
- A woman, believed to be his mother, looked on and did nothing
- Lee captioned the footage: ‘The Brainwashing of America is almost complete’
- The clip was then tweeted by journalist Marie Oakes and went viral
- It was unclear where it was filmed: some questioned the authenticity of the clip
A video of a young child ripping up the American flag from a lawn and throwing it on the ground has gone viral, with the clip being viewed more than three million times as of Sunday.
The footage, from an unknown location, was first posted online on July 8 by Ricky Lee, who shares pro-Trump memes with his 5,000 followers.
It shows a little boy on his scooter passing an American flag flying in a lawn. He stops, goes back, then pulls up the flag and throws it onto the sidewalk. A woman on a bicycle, possibly his mother, stops and looks on, then the pair ride off.
It was then picked up by journalist Marie Oakes, senior editor of Canadian and U.S. news site Westphalian Times.
‘Children are being raised to desecrate the flag,’ she wrote.
A video clip, originally shared by a Trump-supporting Twitter user named Ricky Lee, was posted online on July 8
A child is seen passing an American flag on a scooter. The boy stops and yanks the flag from the lawn, while a woman – believed to be his mother – looks on
The little boy wrestles with the flag for several seconds, eventually succeeding in pulling it up from the ground
The child then throws the flag on the ground and looks at it as he scoots off, with the woman
She was unable to identify the child, but the footage went viral and sparked a strong response.
‘If my kid did that he would be apologizing and then mowing that family’s grass the rest of the year,’ said one woman.
One man remarked: ‘This is sad. We would never have thought to do that as kids in the 60s. It was certainly a different time.’
Another said: ‘Honest question: How can a country succeed if their citizens are being raised to hate it?’
One woman, with the Twitter handle ‘Freedom is Beautiful’, said the child needed to be taught a lesson.
‘If caught and found guilty of trespassing, vandalism etc, the punishment should be going to a cemetery and planting flags on the graves of veterans and hopefully understand that the flag represents the vet’s sacrifices, giving her the freedom to ride her bike down the street.’
Another woman added: ‘They are also being raised to destroy the property of others. This kid needs some good parenting.’
Some, however, questioned the authenticity of the clip, and the strange angle of the security camera footage.
‘Totally a not staged video,’ said Zeke Gonzalez.
He added: ‘I’m 100% convinced it was staged.’
