A Montana man has been charged with assault after he allegedly slammed a 13-year-old to the ground at a rodeo because the boy was wearing a hat during the U.S. national anthem.
Curt Brockway, 39, appeared in court Monday to face an assault charge stemming from the incident.
Witnesses say the suspect attacked the boy at the Mineral County Fair and Rodeo in Superior, Mont., on Saturday in a sudden and violent outburst.
“Dude come up, grabbed him by his neck, picked him up and threw him to the ground head-first,” the boy’s mother, Megan Keeler, told local station MTN News. Keeler heard about the incident from witnesses shortly after she dropped her son off at the fairgrounds.
The suspect defended his actions by saying the boy was “disrespecting the flag,” according to witnesses.
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Brockway told a sheriff’s deputy that he asked the boy to take off his hat out of respect for the anthem, according to court documents filed by Mineral County Attorney Ellen Donohue.
The boy swore at Brockway in response, so he grabbed the 13-year-old by the throat and “lifted him into the air and slammed the boy into the ground,” Donohue wrote.
An unnamed witness told Donohue that her description sounded accurate, although the witness did not hear the boy swear.
Keeler says her son Wally suffered a temporal skull fracture from the incident.
Taylor Hennick, who was at the rodeo at the time, said she noticed the attack when she heard a loud popping sound.
“There was a little boy lying on the ground,” Hennick told the Missoulian newspaper. “He was bleeding out of the ears, seizing on the ground, just not coherent.”
The suspect defended his actions by saying the boy was “disrespecting the flag,” according to witnesses.
Wally was airlifted to a children’s hospital in Spokane after the incident. His mother says he was bleeding from the ears for several hours after it happened.
“It’s just a lot of pain in my head,” Wally told MTN News on Monday, after he was released from hospital. “I don’t remember anything — the rodeo, the helicopter — nothing.”
Keeler wants the suspect to cover her son’s medical bills and remain behind bars so he can’t hurt her boy again.
Montana court records show Brockway was convicted for one charge of assault with a weapon in 2010. He was handed a 10-year suspended sentence and designated a violent offender in connection with the incident.
According to MTN News, the conviction stems from an incident in which Brockway pulled a gun and threatened to kill a family in a parked car.
Brockway has been released from jail and is due back in court on Aug. 14. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press.
“Respectful” behaviour during the U.S. anthem became a flashpoint in American politics in 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump railed against NFL players for kneeling as an act of protest.
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The U.S. Flag Code dictates the various rules around respect for the country’s flag and anthem.
According to the code, “men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at their left shoulder, then hand being over the heart.”
People violate this code at every sports event on a daily basis, with many leaving their hats on or failing to put their hands in the correct position.
The rules of the U.S. Flag Code are not legally binding and the code “does not impose penalties for misuse of the United States flag.”