An adult violently assaulted a teenage boy over the boy's acknowledgment of the national anthem.
On Saturday evening, 39-year-old Curt James Brockway was present at Montana's Mineral County Fair and Rodeo reports The Missoulian. According to bystanders, Brockway lifted up and body-slammed a 13-year-old boy because he didn't remove his hat during the playing of the national anthem. Both Brockway and the young boy are white.
"There was a little boy lying on the ground," witness Taylor Hennick said. "He was bleeding out of his ears, seizing on the ground, just not coherent."
Brockway was heard saying he had "every right" to injure the boy.
Brockway has a violent past and was given a 10-year sentence that was later suspended for a 2010 conviction of assault with a weapon.
He's now been charged with assaulting a minor.
The unidentified child was airlifted to a Spokane, Washington hospital where he was tended to for a temporal skull fracture. He bled from one of his ears for six hours following the incident.
A number of white Americans have doubled down on their reverence for the national anthem once Colin Kaepernick began protesting the disregard for Black lives during its recitation prior to football games.
The anthem has come to be used as the pillar of patriotism for MAGA Americans.
Despite prosecutors' suggestion of a $100,000 bail, ABC 11 reports Brockway was released from jail without having to pay any bond.