UPDATE* I spoke to the father today of the boy who was filmed in the LA Fitness locker room. First off, after seeing all of your support on my post yesterday the boy was SO happy and it even made his Mom cry. Thank you to everyone for joining me in having this young man’s back and wanting to help. The father said he tried to contact the police and sheriffs to help but they said unfortunately, there is nothing they can do. I spoke to my lawyer Shahin Damoui this morning and after seeing my post and the video of this boy, he offered to handle this case immediately for FREE and make that man pay for what he did. I also found out amazingly enough that the boy lives about an hour from me so I’m going to set a date with his parents to head down to see the young man, grab a workout, and hopefully help him through this hard time. Again, NO ONE should ever go through this bullying, especially a child! As far as doing a video response or posting the original video, the father, who is also hurting very badly along with the mother seeing their son go through this, made it very clear he just wants the video off the internet but wants to ask his son what he wants me to do so I will respect whatever decision he makes. I personally don’t think the video needs to reposted. My focus and energy is on helping this young man and his parents move past this and heal. Again, I want to thank ALL of you for your support for this young man and as I promised his father today, we are going to make it right.
I was sent a very upsetting video yesterday by the father of a 14 year old boy being filmed in the locker room at LA Fitness. A man was filming himself flexing when the boy was caught in the background looking at him. The creator then zoomed in on him multiple times to laugh at the boy and use him for the video. The video went viral filled with comments making fun of the boy including comments about his sexuality saying the boy wanted to “be with him” and it was his “coming out” many of which the creator liked and supported. The video was seen by some of the kids at the boy’s school which led to in the words of the father “brutal torment” and bullying as well as the boy no longer wanting to go the gym. The father reached out to me to help in anyway I can so I am getting on call today to see what I can do for his son and what he’s ok with me posting. Regardless, I hope they live near me so I can at least drive down as soon as possible to take him to the gym with me so he’s not afraid as well as talk to the kids at his school about bullying. No young man or woman should ever experience what this kid has gone through OR ever be filmed in a gym locker room, PERIOD. I will update soon.