John Sheeran charged with trying to drown black boy as another teen called him ‘George Floyd’
A 14-year-old boy has been charged for allegedly trying to drown a black teen in a Cape Cod pond while calling him racial slurs — and while another white boy laughed and called him “George Floyd” because he couldn’t breathe.
John Sheeran, 14, appeared in a Boston-area court Monday after being indicted by a grand jury on charges of attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon over the alleged July 19 attack, NBC Boston reported.
The 15-year-old alleged victim said Sheeran and another boy — who has not been identified or charged — threw rocks at him as soon as he arrived to meet them that day at Goose Neck Pond in Chatham.
When he was forced to get into the water, he wore a lifejacket because he could not swim, according to a police report also obtained by the Boston Globe.
Sheeran then swam out to him — and yanked him under the water four or five times while calling him the n-word, according to the affidavit.
The alleged victim yelled for Sheeran to stop because he could not breathe, the report said.
The other boy then “started laughing and called me George Floyd, obviously making fun of me and showing NO remorse,” the accuser wrote in his police report.
A witness, who is also a minor, told police he heard the boy ask Sheeran “to please not splash or push him because of his inability to swim” and that he saw Sheeran and the other child “pushing his head underwater” while he was “screaming for help.”
“When I finally get to them they were smirking,” that child wrote.
Sheeran has been charged as a youthful offender, meaning his court proceedings are open to the public and he can be sentenced as an adult if convicted, the reports said.
He left his bail hearing with his father and a new GPS monitoring device.
He did not make any comments during the hearing.
Sheeran’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, griped that the charges were “over the top.”
“They were in the water horseplaying and it got out of control, clearly,” he told the Globe.
That same day, Sheeran punched an Asian boy in the face after that boy called him fat, Cape and Islands District Attorney Eileen Moriarty told the judge, according to CBS.
Sheeran’s hearing was attended by dozens of community members including members of the NAACP of Cape Cod.
