A group of black teenage activists who were racially abused by a Florida man wielding a gun met Miami prosecutors on Thursday to push for stronger charges against the aggressor.
On Monday a widely shared video showed Mark Bartlett confronting the teens, who were taking part in a “Bikes Up Guns Down” demonstration in Miami.
Bartlett has been charged with carrying a concealed firearm, but the teenagers met with prosecutors on Thursday to argue that the charges should be enhanced.
“The proper charge is felony assault,” Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney who is representing four of the teens, told the Guardian. “You point a weapon at kids – that’s felony assault.”
State attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has also said she is investigating the incident as a hate crime. Rundle said she was “outraged” at the “act depicted in the videos taken during this incident”.
Footage posted to Twitter by the Dream Defenders activist organization showed a group of teenagers facing off with a woman, who accuses one of them of running over her foot.
The activists had blocked the Brickell Avenue Bridge in Miami on Martin Luther King day as part of the Bikes Up Guns Down rally, which aims to promote peace. The woman, identified in local media as Dana Scalione, is shown in a confrontation with the teens, asking them to clear the road.
Later in the video a white man, Bartlett, approaches carrying a pistol. He calls the group of black youths “dumb-ass fucking niggers” as they leave the scene. Bartlett told ABC Local 10 News he was protecting his girlfriend.
Police charged Bartlett with carrying a concealed firearm, but Merritt said the charge was insufficient. He said the four teenagers had described themselves as “in shock, scared, terrified” following the incident.
“One of the moms told me her 13-year-old son didn’t sleep the entire night because he thought his friend was going to be killed,” Merritt said.
