Shaun King's 1995 "Beating" Didn't Merit a Followup by Local Paper

The Woodford Sun, a local Kentucky newspaper in "in continuous publication since 1869" didn't think Shaun King's 1995 beating was newsworthy enough to merit a follow-up. According to The Woodford County Historical Society, which maintains back-issues of the Sun, the incident merited just one mention in the "News of Record" section of the Sun's March 8, 1995 issue which stated, "according to a March 1 report filed, a Woodford County High School student said was he was assaulted by another student while at school."

The Historical Society reviewed subsequent issues of the paper for a follow-up story, but found no other references to Shaun King's March 1, 1995 fight at Woodford County High School.

King has faced intense scrutiny and public criticism after a report by The Blaze disputed details of a fight King was involved as a high school student. King has repeatedly claimed he was a victim of a racially motivated beat down by a group of white students, but according to The Blaze:

The police report and witness statements from the incident characterize King’s injuries as only “minor” and make no mention of a gang assault, but suggest it was rather a one-on-one fight over a girl.

“His description of his injuries are different from what I observed,” former Versailles detective Keith Broughton told TheBlaze. “Keep in mind I didn’t see any X-rays or anything taken, but when I interviewed him and saw him in the emergency room he was not beaten to a pulp. His injuries appeared to be minor to me.”

“He had an abrasion on his face. He complained that he had some rib pain. But he was able to talk to me and describe to me — he talked to me and told me what happened. I do not recall anything mentioned about a gang assault because obviously I would have noted that in my police report,” Broughton continued.

“All of the witnesses described it as a one-on-one fight. Now there was a crowd gathered around, but I assume they were just watching the fight. Only Mr. King and the individual that assaulted him were involved in the altercation,” Broughton added.

King has prompted two former Woodford students to post accounts of the event to Facebook that corroborate his story. Both assert city officials "did not want this getting out" and imply investigation into the incident was suppressed.

Not only was Shaun beaten to a bloody pulp by a mob of students while we were in high school, my city of Versailles did everything it could to cover up and down play the event from the moment that it happened, as evidenced by half-assed police report and lack of news coverage at the time of the event.

King has not responded to questions about why his claim that he was attacked by roughly a dozen students was not included in the police report, nor has he provided any evidence from the time of the incident to support his claims that he was attacked by more than one person and that the attack was racially motivated.

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