Alexander Jennes Downing got some much-deserved Internet fame this week, after he was arrested for a bigoted, drunken, obscenity-laced tirade that he directed towards a family on a Texas beach.
Video taken by the family shows Downing, 35, walk over to them and confront members of their group, yelling, “You’re a f*cking Muslim, motherf*cker.” As another beachgoer tries to calm the situation, Davidson yells, “You will never ever, ever, stop me, my Christianity, from rising above your Sharia law. Your Sharia law don’t mean sh*t to me.”
“Donald Trump will stop you. Donald Trump will stop you!” he continued. The video then shows him grabbing his crotch in front of several children.
The family posted video of the incident to their YouTube account. Soon after, it was picked up by numerous news outlets and shared by thousands.
Along with the video, the family posted their account of what happened:
While enjoying our time at the beach during a family reunion, our kids and us had to experience ugliness and aggressiveness in the worse shape and form possible. We were staying at the South Padre Pearl hotel and went to the beach through their private access.
My father was approached by two woman who were also enjoying their time. The women asked him to help with talking to a stranger who was harassing them. All my father said to the guy was “please enjoy your time and have fun and let everyone else here enjoy their time.”
The guy seemed to listen and walked away. He then came back to my father and started throwing racist comments. He was yelling so loud that my uncles and my brother came over from the water to see what was going on.
The insane man came close to the kids and that’s when my uncle stood up to him and defended us and the kids, including my 4 year old cousin, 4 and 2 year old nephews. The video here shows a glimpse of what we all had to experience.
It is worth mentioning that we contacted South Padre police and the man left on his way back o the hotel. A little after that the police came and told my father to call them again if he harasses us again. We went back to playing in the water and sand then the insane man came back with even more aggressiveness and more racial slurs.
We called 911 again as you may be able to hear on the video. After about 20 minutes of him going crazy he left back to the hotel. The police then came back and they arrested the man at the hotel restaurant. When we spoke to the hotel management, they said they couldn’t do anything at the time because he is in police custody and that if they see him, they will evict him.
The next morning my uncle saw him at the front desk and talked to the management. They plainly told us that they can’t do anything about it right now and that if he does this again he will be arrested. I don’t understand what it takes for this hotel to take actions. Do they need someone to get hurt?
Perhaps even more pathetic than his beach tirade is Downing’s mugshot after he was arrested for public intoxication.
While even-minded analysis about what swept Trump into power is necessary, a study conducted on the 2016 election suggests that there were a fairly large demographic of Trump supporters who acted on their racial and nationalistic feelings when they went to the voting booth. The study was hotly debated, as it should have been, but there’s no denying the words that came out of Downing’s mouth are an unrefined mimicry of rhetoric that emanated from within or close to Trump’s circle throughout the entire campaign.
Downing’s behavior is tragic, because it shows a man whose life is likely a mess, but it isn’t the first viral video showing angry people branding their public tirades with the Trump banner. There’s a subtle theme in most of the videos I’ve seen, which seems to say, “The era of Trump is here. Get used to this being the norm.”
It’s true; the Trump era is here, but it’ll soon be over. Thankfully for history, the Internet is forever.
To follow Sky Palma on Facebook, click here. (Featured image via YouTube/South Padre Island Police Department.)
