Two white Sanford, Florida, men were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly breaking a Black teen’s car window with a rock and damaging the vehicle with a traffic cone that dented the back driver’s side door. Also in the car was 15-year-old Bailey Kennedy, who is white, who one of the men allegedly hit with the traffic cone.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the 16-year-old, identified as Jermaine Jones, posted a video to social media on Wednesday that showed the two men, Donald Corsi, 52, and Howard Hughes, 61, shouting at him in front of the damaged car.
The video went viral overnight, sparking outrage from viewers who agreed that the altercation had been racially motivated. Sanford made headlines more than a decade ago when Trayvon Martin was gunned down by George Zimmerman in 2012.
Both men in the incident are facing property damage charges. Corsi will also face a weapons charge for allegedly throwing a rock through the teen’s window and Hughes will face battery charges for the use of a traffic cone.
Arrest reports show that the teens told Seminole County deputies that the men had “aggressively approached” and threatened them. Both teens were still inside the vehicle during the alleged attack, and the rock was still in the back seat when deputies arrived.
In a social media post that accompanied the video, Jones wrote, “I was racially profiled while driving through my friend’s neighborhood. They didn’t like how I was driving, so they felt the need to hit my car with a cone, and throw a rock through my window.”
The video that Jones posted after the incident shows his car window already broken and Corsi taking a photo of the car’s license plate while shouting at the teens for allegedly speeding through the neighborhood. Hughes and an unidentified woman were heard ordering the teen to “get out of my neighborhood.”
Police reports show that Kennedy had a mark on his abdomen from where he was hit with the cone, but no further injuries, the Sentinel reported.
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