A father has been arrested and charged with a felony hate crime after a viral video allegedly showed him hurling racial slurs at a Black student and threatening him.
A viral video that was recorded on Nov. 10 allegedly shows the father of a white female student harassing, threatening and insulting a Black student with racial slurs while over iPhone’s FaceTime application. The father has been identified as 39-year-old William Cunningham.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the phone call allegedly happened after an altercation between the Cunningham’s teen daughter and the Black male student at the students’ school Monroe High School. The girl can allegedly be heard calling him racial slurs during the viral video. The video also shows several other students getting involved; at one point, some “pushing” and “shoving” ensues during the incident, police said.
“The [father’s] death threats and racist remarks were recorded via a witnessing student’s phone and circulated widely via social media,” police continued.
During their investigation, police officers learned that this wasn’t the first time the father participated in harassing the Black teen. Yahoo! Sports reports the father and daughter have been accused of showing up at the male student’s job, where they ended up getting banned from being on the premises.
Now, the father is expected to be arraigned on Jan. 19 in Snohomish County Superior Court.
