A Texas man is facing assault charges after a confrontation with teenagers at an anti-ICE student walkout turned into a brawl caught on video. Police in Buda, south of Austin, say 45-year-old Chad Michael Watts of Kyle was arrested Tuesday on two counts of assault causing bodily injury, People reports. Officers were called Monday afternoon to reports of a fight in progress near the student demonstration, where Johnson High School students were protesting recent immigration enforcement actions.
According to police, witnesses said a girl on the sidewalk got into an argument with a man in a vehicle. "The argument escalated into a physical altercation involving multiple people" before the man left the scene, police said. Video shows the man scuffling with multiple teens. KXAN reports that other videos show the man pushing past students and singling out a teenage girl after he gets out of his truck. They exchanged punches before she was pushed to the ground. After tracking him down and interviewing those involved, investigators said they concluded that Watts was "the primary aggressor."
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra stressed that the students were engaged in a lawful protest. "No matter one's political views, an adult bears a clear responsibility to exercise restraint, especially in the presence of children," the judge said. "Violence or intimidation directed at a minor—particularly during a lawful, peaceful demonstration—has no place in a constitutional republic that depends on the rule of law rather than force." CBS Austin reports that the judge remarked on the power imbalance between adults and minors: "A full-grown adult on a young high school girl is a lot of power to overthrow, and so it took enough people around finally to get him off of her, and ultimately he went back into his truck and took off."
Jaden Fox tells KXAN that he was driving by the protest with his wife when they saw Watts start "screaming at these kids." Fox says they tried to stop the fight and deescalate the situation. "In my mind he is still very dangerous. I don't know if he has a weapon on him, or in his car or what," he says. "And I don't want these kids to get in trouble for doing something potentially more serious than anyone is meaning to."
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