Critics Blast Sharpton, Jackson Over Silence on Brutal FL Bus Beating

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom immediately polarized the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, are being criticized for their silence about a vicious school bus beating in which three black teens mercilessly brutalized a white classmate last month. 

According to police, on July 9, in the St. Petersburg, Florida community of Gulfport, three youths, all black, attacked a white boy “after he told officials at their dropout prevention school that one of them had tried to sell him marijuana. The unidentified boy was left with a broken arm and two black eyes.”

It took nearly a month for the cell phone and surveillance video to emerge, instantly going viral. Unlike with Trayvon Martin’s death, where the mainstream media at first said George Zimmerman was “white” before calling him a “white Hispanic,” the media largely did not mention the race of the white victim.

But the silence of such so-called black “civil rights” leaders that former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has called “race-baiters” has troubled some black Americans, like West, even more. 

“Three 15-yr-old black teens beat up a 13-yr-old white kid because he told school officials they tried to sell him drugs,” West (R-FL) wrote on his Facebook page. “Do you hear anything from Sharpton, Jackson, NAACP, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, liberal media, or Hollywood? Cat got your tongues or is it that pathetic hypocrisy revealing itself once again? Y’all just make me sick.”

Robert Zimmerman, the brother of George Zimmerman “who vociferously defended his brother against charges the shooting of Martin was racially motivated,” said it was time to “unplug” their mic in response to a tweet that said, “apparently racism only works one way?

The attackers–Joshua Reddin, Julian McKnight, and Lloyd Khemradj, all 15 years old–were arrested and “charged with aggravated battery and have since been released. Reddin is also charged with unarmed robbery.”

Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent has indicated the attack did not “appear to be racially motivated” and was simply “due to the younger boy” snitching on one of his attackers.