Buda police officers have arrested a 45-year-old man following a fight with student protesters near Johnson High School on Monday.
Chad Michael Watts, who lives in Kyle, was charged Tuesday afternoon with two counts of assault causing bodily injury.
The incident was captured in a now viral video.
A man and a student protester are seen getting into a verbal argument that quickly turns physical and results in the man throwing the girl to the ground and striking her repeatedly until other students intervene and pull him away. Video posted to social media shows he then returned to his truck.
Watts was later brought in for questioning by Buda Police. "After further thorough investigation, it was determined that Watts was the primary aggressor in the physical altercation," the department said in a statement.
The student, a sophomore, was checked by Emergency Medical Services and chose not to be taken to the hospital.
The protest was one of several walkouts that happened Monday in Hays County. Students from Hays High, Johnson High, Lehman High, Barton Middle and Live Oak Academy High schools made up some of the hundreds of students who gathered to protest the actions of federal immigration officers.
Students gathered at all four corners of the intersection of FM 1626 and RM 967 during the Johnson High demonstration, holding signs and cheering. Around 200 students walked out of the school and participated in the protest.
Buda Police, alongside county constables and sheriff's deputies, all had a presence at the protest when it started, temporarily blocking a lane of traffic on FM 1626 southbound to separate the high school protesters from the road. The protest lasted several hours and, over that time, several of the police units left to respond to other calls.
Around 3 p.m., Buda Police responded to reports of an assault on one of the students by a driver.
Students react to violence during the walkout
Students who saw the incident take place were dismayed that the protest became violent.
"Leading up to the [incident], it was very peaceful," sophomore Isabella said. "Nobody was being violent, nobody was like tormenting the people driving by. We were just standing there … hooting and hollering, just making our voices heard. There wasn't really anything, I think at all, that would have prompted a grown man to attack a teenage girl."
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, saying, "No matter one's political views, an adult bears a clear responsibility to exercise restraint, especially in the presence of children," he said. "Violence or intimidation directed at a minor—particularly during a lawful, peaceful demonstration—has no place in a constitutional republic that depends on the rule of law rather than force."
For some students, these protests are deeply personal. José, another sophomore, wanted to participate in the protest as a tribute to his family. "One of my uncles have recently got deported, and it's just sad to like see it in my family," he said. "It really does affect our family — not knowing if we're gonna see them again."
Following the alleged assault, the protest continued for another hour. "Afterwards ... we proceeded to continue to peacefully protest," Isabella said. "We picked our signs back up, we picked ourselves back up and we had our voices heard again."
'Future walkouts cannot happen,' superintendent says
The school district released a statement following the protests on Monday, and followed up with another statement on Tuesday afternoon. Superintendent Eric Wright said that "future walkouts cannot happen."
Wright wrote that, for future protests, parents would be required to sign their child out of school and leave school property with them. He also outlined repercussions for participating in walkouts and protests, which include unexcused absences, Saturday truancy detention and loss of final exam exemption.
Wright did not explicitly address the attack on the Johnson High student, but did say that "a relatively few number of students placed themselves in positions of danger and made horrible choices as part of the protests yesterday."
Monday's demonstrations in Hays County follow protests that took place across Austin ISD on Friday. After these student walkouts, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that the state was demanding information from AISD for its alleged involvement. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also said he was directing the education commissioner to investigate the district.
Abbott weighed in on the Hays CISD walkouts in a social media post on Tuesday, referencing an unrelated incident involving Kyle High School students.
"Schools and staff who allow this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators and should not be immune for criminal behavior," Abbott said. "We are also looking into stripping the funding of schools that abandon their duty to teach our kids the curriculum required by law."
State Rep. Erin Zwiener, a Democrat whose district encompasses Buda, said, "Instead of calling for justice against the grown man that assaulted a girl, Governor Abbott is celebrating the arrest of students and calling for the criminal investigation of schools and teachers," she said. "He is also threatening the funding of our school districts and spreading the lie that schools are inciting our kids to protest."
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