Sobbing five-year-old Asian boy tormented by hateful middle-schoolers in heartbreaking video: ‘Don't hurt me!'
A five-year-old Chinese-American boy clutched his blanket and sobbed as a middle-schooler terrorized him with a barrage of ethnic slurs while pals laughed — with the whole attack on heartbreaking video.
'No!' the youngster cried as he ran from the older boys outside his home in Loudoun County, Va., holding a blue blanket, NBC-TV News reported.
'Don't hurt me, don't hurt me! Don't do it. Save me!' the little boy pleaded.
The middle-school punk sneered, 'Are you having dumplings for dinner?' as he cornered the boy on his front porch April 5.
The tormentor uttered other cruel taunts, the most disturbing of which were censored by the outlet.
The incident, involving students from Eagle Ridge Middle School, devastated the victim's parents but has prompted little action from school officials, who claimed they are 'quite disappointed' but noted the attack took place off school grounds.
'Every time I saw that, my heart's broken — every time,' the boy's mother, whose identity is being withheld, told NBC of the footage.
'As a mother, to see my son insulted by other, older kids... my son's only 5 years old. I just don't know why those kids are so cruel to say that to my son.
'Nobody came to step out and to say, 'Stop,' ' she said.
'Nobody thinks this is not right. They [were] just laughing. Yeah, nobody stood up.'
The abusive delinquents posted the video online, and an Eagle Ridge parent saw it and dashed to the young victim's home in tears to show his parents the footage.
The youngster's father said his son was terrified by the older boys but didn't understand a lot of the slurs being leveled at him. The child was called 'King Kong' at times.
'Should I keep lying and say, 'Yes, they're calling you King Kong because you're strong,' ' the distraught dad said. 'Or should I try to explain to him what does that word [mean] and why they're saying that to you? It's hard.'
The family migrated from China and worked hard to buy a home in the US, choosing the Loudoun County neighborhood for its upscale schools and friendly neighborhoods, the victim's parents said.
'We thought that this would be a great place,' the father said. 'However, though, it ended up like this. So what hurts me most is, then, where else should I be? That hurts me most, not just the words.'
The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office confirmed to NBC that the incident was reported to the department but declined to comment further because it involved minors.
Dan Adams, a spokesman for the school district, said it has offered the 5-year-old boy counseling 'and potentially restorative practices' if the family wanted.
Originally published as Sobbing five-year-old Asian boy tormented by hateful middle-schoolers in heartbreaking video: 'Don't hurt me!'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
5 hours ago
- The Age
Like school shootings, political violence is becoming part of life in the US
The statements of shock and condolences streamed in eerily, one after another, on Saturday after the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted murder of another lawmaker and his wife. 'Horrible news,' said Steve Scalise, a politician who was shot at a baseball game in 2017. 'Paul and I are heartbroken,' said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was bludgeoned with a hammer in 2022. 'My family and I know the horror of a targeted shooting all too well,' said former politician Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011. Still more came from Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (arson, 2025), Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (kidnapping plot, 2020) and President Donald Trump (two assassination attempts, 2024). 'Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,' the president said. And yet, the expanding club of survivors of political violence seemed to stand as evidence to the contrary. In the past three months alone, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's residence while Shapiro and his family were asleep inside; another man gunned down a pair of workers from the Israeli Embassy outside an event in Washington; protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, were set on fire; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque, New Mexico, were firebombed. And those were just the incidents that resulted in death or destruction. Against that backdrop, it might have been shocking, but it was not really so surprising, when Saturday morning, a Democratic state representative in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were assassinated in their home, and a Democratic state senator, John A. Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were shot and wounded. Slowly but surely, political violence has moved from the fringes to an inescapable reality. Violent threats and even assassinations, attempted or successful, have become part of the political landscape — a steady undercurrent of American life.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Like school shootings, political violence is becoming part of life in the US
The statements of shock and condolences streamed in eerily, one after another, on Saturday after the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted murder of another lawmaker and his wife. 'Horrible news,' said Steve Scalise, a politician who was shot at a baseball game in 2017. 'Paul and I are heartbroken,' said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was bludgeoned with a hammer in 2022. 'My family and I know the horror of a targeted shooting all too well,' said former politician Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011. Still more came from Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (arson, 2025), Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (kidnapping plot, 2020) and President Donald Trump (two assassination attempts, 2024). 'Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,' the president said. And yet, the expanding club of survivors of political violence seemed to stand as evidence to the contrary. In the past three months alone, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's residence while Shapiro and his family were asleep inside; another man gunned down a pair of workers from the Israeli Embassy outside an event in Washington; protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, were set on fire; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque, New Mexico, were firebombed. And those were just the incidents that resulted in death or destruction. Against that backdrop, it might have been shocking, but it was not really so surprising, when Saturday morning, a Democratic state representative in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were assassinated in their home, and a Democratic state senator, John A. Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were shot and wounded. Slowly but surely, political violence has moved from the fringes to an inescapable reality. Violent threats and even assassinations, attempted or successful, have become part of the political landscape — a steady undercurrent of American life.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
What happened to Harold Holt? A new novel puts his widow in the spotlight
Kim Wilkins' eyes mist up suddenly. 'I'm going to get a little teary. It's just, Harold Holt's been a bit of a punchline. 'So when I read Zara's memoir, and she talks about the day that he disappears, I finally got that this was a real human being with children, grandchildren and a wife who had loved him for 40 years.' Dame Zara Holt's memoir, My Life and Harry, came out in the wake of the 1967 disappearance of Australia's 17th prime minister while he was swimming at Cheviot Beach in Portsea, Victoria. Toowong-based novelist Wilkins read it after a friend in publishing told her about Zara during a discussion of overlooked women in Australian history. 'This woman was incredible, and I barely knew about her,' Wilkins says. 'She was clever and entrepreneurial, and a really talented designer. She was 19 when she started her first fashion house with her best friend. 'I read her memoir and I thought, oh, there's a novel in this.' That novel is The Secret Year of Zara Holt, Wilkins' new book under her nom de plume, Kimberley Freeman. Wilkins – let's call her Freeman for clarity – is a University of Queensland academic who has somehow found the time to publish more than 30 novels under two names. Her new book covers the life of Zara, nee Dickins, from the night she met Holt at a college dance in Melbourne in 1927 until his fateful swim 40 years later. Speculation about Holt's fate has ranged from a Chinese spy submarine supposedly plucking him from Bass Strait to assassination by the CIA. Some believe he faked his death. Freeman weaves her own theory into her novel, based on what she learned about Zara and Harry's personalities and marriage. 'Harry obviously had commitment issues, and it's well known that he had multiple affairs, even after he and Zara were married. 'He was with his long-term mistress on the beach that day, but he was seeing many other women. No wonder he and [US president Lyndon B. Johnson] got on so well, because LBJ was exactly the same.' Magg, Zara's fashion boutique with friend Betty James, showcased a prodigious talent for design – a collection of her outfits is held at the National Gallery of Victoria. She also contributed to the war effort with innovative ideas while working for her father's food manufacturing business. She had three children before finally marrying Holt, then a rising star in Robert Menzies' cabinet. Zara would bring style to the role of prime minister's wife in the same way Jackie Kennedy added stardust to JFK's White House. Ultimately, she cut an equally tragic figure. Holt came to power when Menzies retired, won the 1966 election and governed for 22 months. His much-reviled 'all the way with LBJ' line outraged Australia's anti-Vietnam War movement. Still, Freeman did not expect to admire Holt's political career as much as she did. 'I'm a member of the Labor Party. And reading about Holt and Menzies blew my mind. That's not the Liberal Party that I see today. 'Holt got through things like the referendum for citizenship for Aboriginal people. He started to dismantle the White Australia policy. And the Child Endowment [Act] – Zara was so proud of that. Politics was very different back then.' Freeman was born in Lewisham, a notoriously rough part of South London that birthed the likes of Alexander McQueen and Sid Vicious. Another Lewisham native, Kate Bush, comes to mind when meeting Freeman, whose witchy sense of personal style features a lot of black. Her New Zealand dad and Papua New Guinea-born mum moved to Redcliffe when she was a toddler. Flunking out of high school to work at Big Rooster and sing in a covers band, she came into academia late after a stint in the public service. Her first tutorial in Elizabethan literature 'took the top of my head off'. 'I did a double major in medieval and early modern literature. The medieval literature has really stuck with me. That's the stuff that really makes my engines run.' She published her first Kim Wilkins novel in 1997 as an undergraduate. The Infernal, a reincarnation drama with witches, found an audience with the Anne Rice-Stephenie Meyer set. 'Under my own name, the books I write inevitably have something supernatural and dark and Gothic about them,' she explains. 'The Kimberley Freeman books, they're like adventure stories for women, and they're historical. They indulge my love of fashion from different periods, which is why I was so drawn to write about Zara.' As Freeman, her 2008 book Wildflower Hill, a multi-era novel in the mould of A.S. Byatt's Possession, almost broke her big, with translations into 20 different languages. 'I used to write like a book a year, and now that I've slowed down a bit, I'm enjoying it much more.' In writing about Zara's first marriage to a British army colonel, she had to invent most details as information was scarce. Zara's final marriage, to Macarthur MP Jeff Bate, is left offstage. As for Harold Holt, Freeman believes the PM was caught up in his 'own mystique'. 'There was that famous photo of him with his daughters-in-law – they were all in bikinis, and he was in a wetsuit going spear fishing. And he looked like James Bond.' As Freeman writes about them, the Holts are Australia's great prime ministerial love story. 'It's clear there were sexual fireworks, because they kept coming back together.' They had a sentimental attachment to Bingil Bay, North Queensland, where artist friends John and Alison Busst lived, and where they eventually owned a holiday house. Freeman admits her depiction of the Holts smoking marijuana there is sheer speculation. 'We don't know that the Holts smoked weed, but it was the '60s and I inferred that from the people that they were hanging around with. I just can't imagine that they didn't.'
