Sacramento State student slapping College Republicans ex-president on video goes viral
A student who is Sacramento State College Republicans’ president emeritus was repeatedly slapped by a fellow political science student in a video that caught the attention of far-right activists on the internet.
The assault is being investigated by Sacramento State police, but no charges had been filed Saturday.
Floyd Johnson II said his feud with Keaton Hill began Thursday night when Hill commented on a mutual friend’s anti-abortion Facebook post, saying “I hope that kid on your page dies of whatever cancer they have.” A brief online dispute between the two followed, with Hill allegedly telling Johnson to say whatever he had to say face-to-face.
According to Johnson, who spoke with The Sacramento Bee on Saturday morning, the two had a European politics class together Friday morning, and Johnson said Hill casually slipped out “f--- you” while walking by him during class. Johnson and a friend, Henry Seufert, confronted Hill near the Amador Hall exit around 11:55 a.m., he said.
In the video recorded by Johnson, Hill said Johnson is harassing him and threatened to get Sacramento State student conduct administrator Tom Carroll involved. Hill then appeared to slap Johnson once, walk outside the building, and was then restrained by Seufert. As the video continues to record, Hill slaps Johnson at least twice more before walking away for good.
Hill did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident, but told the State Hornet newspaper, “I apologize for lunging at Floyd’s phone, although I strongly emphasize that it was not without provocation.”
Johnson later filed a report with the Sacramento State Police Department, Chief Mark Iwasa said, and charges are pending while the department’s investigation continues.
“I didn’t choose to fight back because I’m 6-foot-5 and he’s 5-foot-6 or 5-foot-7 or something. It really would have been unfair,” Johnson said by phone. “And anyway, the way he was hitting me was open-handed. If he was connecting and actually hurting me, then I would have engaged with him, but in that moment I was more focused on videoing the incident and recording what was going on.”
Johnson’s video of the incident was tweeted out by Kaitlin Bennett, a conservative personality known as “Gun Girl” for posing on Kent State’s campus with an AR-10 after graduating. Bennett’s post had more than 12,500 “likes” and 8,000 retweets as of Saturday afternoon.
Hill apparently responded to Bennett’s tweet with a expletive-laden video of his own, which was also posted by Bennett.
Hill and Johnson were also involved in an altercation last year at a College Republicans event in response to the Stephon Clark shooting. In a video, Hill tried to slap the person recording a video and called him a homophobic slur while Johnson attempted to restrain an incensed student.
Sacramento State president Robert Nelsen responded to the incident on the university’s Facebook page, saying it “in no way reflects Sacramento State’s values” and that “everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in expressing their identity and beliefs.”
“I am deeply disturbed and appalled to learn that there was a fistfight on campus today between two students,” Nelsen’s statement said. “We are investigating the situation, but I want to make it unequivocally clear that violence is never the answer.”
Johnson was president of the Sacramento State College Republicans for the last year-and-a-half, he said, and remains involved in the club.