Woman claims Covington Catholic High School teenagers harassed her friends before confrontation with Native American man

Initial video went viral over weekend, but it has since then been questioned whether clip shows whole story

A student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips (REUTERS/Twitter)

A woman claims that she and her friends were harassed by boys from Covington Catholic High School before the now infamous moment of alleged conflict between student Nick Sandmann and Native American Vietnam War veteran Nathan Philips.

The woman posted a video of the apparent moment, saying that she is “tired of reading things saying [the boys] were provoked by anyone else other than their own egos and ignorance”.

The video shows the woman and a friend walking on the National Mall in Washington, with a group of boys on a bench reportedly yelling “MAGA” and “build the wall” in the background.

The boys appear to be high school aged, and their hats appear in the video consistent with Donald Trump’s signature Make America Great Again hats. But, it is not clear if Mr Sandmann is among those in the video, or how the woman who posted the video – identified on Twitter as “linds” – knows that it is the same group of boys. A message requesting comment and clarification was not returned.

“Also for those asking the full details, the interaction wasnt very complicated,” a tweet with the video says. “We walked by, they started yelling, we asked them how old they were, they replied “old enough”, kept yelling, and we rolled our eyes and kept walking”.The post comes after a different video went viral over the weekend, showing Mr Sandmann in a red Make America Great Again hat appearing to stare down Mr Philips, who was playing a drum in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The video sparked outrage from those who saw in it a group of high school boys surrounding Mr Philips and provoking him, and Mr Philips himself told media outlets that he felt as though he was in danger.

But, over the weekend, a longer video of the incident surfaced, calling into question whether the initial video had included the complete context of the day. In that second video, Mr Sandmann appears to insert himself in between high schoolers and a separate demonstration of black men reported to be Hebrew Israelites.

Mr Sandmann, for his part, said in a statement that he and his classmates had received permission to begin chanting school spirit songs. He said that he was not aware of any negative or derogatory chants used by his group, but claimed that the group of other demonstrators had lobbed several crass insults their way.

He said Mr Philips then entered the group and approached him. They made eye contact, but did not otherwise speak, he said.

“I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me,” Mr Sandmann said. “We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers”.

Donald Trump has commented on the circumstances in support of Mr Sandmann, saying that it appears as though the high school students from Kentucky were treated unfairly.

“Looking like Nick Sandman [sic] & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false - smeared by media,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

Mr Trump continued: “Not good, but making big comeback! ‘New footage shows that media was wrong about teen’s encounter with Native American’”.