Stranger slams boy to ground for ‘disrespecting’ flag during anthem, Montana mom says

A man is accused of slamming a teenage boy to the ground for “disrespecting the flag” while the national anthem played at a Montana county fair, media outlets report.

Megan Keeler says she had just dropped off her 13-year-old son Saturday evening at the Mineral County Fair when she got a phone call that a man had assaulted her child, according to KPAX. Witnesses said the man picked up the boy and threw him to the ground for not removing his hat during “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Montana TV station reported.

“Dude come up and grabbed him by his neck, picked him up and threw him to the ground head first,” Keeler told KPAX.

A woman who had stopped near the entrance to the fairground for the national anthem witnessed the boy hitting the ground, the Missoulian reported.

“There was a little boy lying on the ground,” Taylor Hennick told the newspaper. “He was bleeding out of his ears, seizing on the ground, just not coherent.”

The boy was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, then flown by helicopter to Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital in Spokane, Washington, the sheriff’s office said.

On Monday, the boy was back home, but he had bled from his ears for six hours and has skull fractures, his mother told KPAX.

Curt James Brockway, 39, of Mineral County, was charged with felony assault on a minor, the sheriff’s office said. Brockway is a violent offender, according to a state database. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011 on a charge of assault with a weapon, according to the Montana Department of Corrections.

This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 11:53 AM with the headline "Stranger slams boy to ground for ‘disrespecting’ flag during anthem, Montana mom says."