A 5-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.