A resident of one of America’s richest neighborhoods is facing a number of charges in Southern California after going on a hate-filled tirade in a lecture hall that ended in violence. Dayton Kingery, 21, originally of Greenwich, Connecticut, is “no longer a student” at Chapman University, according to the university’s president, Daniele Struppa. Meanwhile, Kingery’s father, in a phone interview with the Greenwich Time, predictably insisted that his son is “a great kid.”
Chapman students have uploaded multiple videos of the Feb. 4 incident to social media; they show a flannel-clad Kingery repeatedly hurling racial epithets into the air until—and after—his classmates speak out. He then adds homophobia to the mix, and dares his classmates to take action, holding up his net worth as a weapon. His former classmates rose to the challenge.
It’s unclear what happened before the video below begins, but Kingery is obviously drunk and looking for a response from his Economics classmates. The incident took place at around 11 AM in Beckman Hall; students appear to be on a mid-class break, or waiting for the professor to arrive to start class; it does appear that there is no so-called “adult in the room.”
Transcript:
KINGERY: Oh dude. We’re gonna need some big-time help in this. You guys gotta play me off like I haven’t been drinking all day. Been drinking Bacardi all day, nigga. I fucking hate niggers. I fucking hate niggers, let it be known.
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): You should probably chill, buddy.
KINGERY: We got any niggers in here? No.
The classroom erupts in vocal disgust.
FEMALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): Shut the fuck up.
KINGERY: Nigger. I fucking hate niggers.
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): Dude.
KINGERY: I fucking hate faggots, too. How ‘bout that?
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): Alright, you gotta get out of here, bro. Come on.
Kingery remains seated, and grins and looks around the room.
ANOTHER MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): That’s really not funny, dude.
KINGERY: No. It’s the perfect combination, trust me. Good. (unintelligible) This is exactly how I wanted it to go. I’m terrible at butthole stuff, so ...
In an interview with the Chapman student paper, The Panther, classmate Gabriel Sitorus recalled that Kingery then “got up and walked back to this one dude standing by me, just some stranger, slapped him on his ass. (The stranger) didn’t do anything about it because he smelled the alcohol, and then (the student) started running into the walls and saying disrespectful things,” Sitorus told the paper. “Girls would walk by and he’d say, ‘oh, I’m trying to **** you.’ We weren’t having it.” Sitorus also noted that Kingery “was saying, ‘Oh, I’m super drunk.’”
It’s unclear how much time passed between the first video and the one below, which starts with Kingery on his feet in the back of the classroom, and appears to come after the events Sitorus described.
Transcript:
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): Wait, what’s your name, buddy?
KINGERY (slurring speech): D. Kingery. Don’t say my name. You don’t know who I am, guy. I’m not kidding. I’ll fucking bury you. I’m worth like 50 million dollars.
ANOTHER MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): What’d you say? What’d you say?
Kingery crosses the room toward a seated student, whom he pats on the back..
KINGERY: This faggot right here.
The classroom responds vocally as a whole. That student leaps up.
THAT STUDENT: Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.
The cameraman and several other students then move toward Kingery to push him out the nearby door.
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): We’re leavin’.
KINGERY: Let me get my backpack.
MALE CLASSMATE (off-screen): We’ll get your backpack. Let’s go. Get the fuck out.
Kingery is shoved out into the hallway, where other students look on. The cameraman holds a backpack out toward Kingery, while another student throws a messenger bag at him. Kingery catches the messenger bag and hurls it down the hallway.
KINGERY: That’s not my backpack, you fucking faggot.
Kingery then races after the messenger bag and stomps on it until he falls to the floor. Stunned calls to “get him out” continue to erupt from the classroom door as he gets up, grinning, and comes back toward the classroom. Another student approaches to intercept him.
KINGERY: Hope your laptop was in there, you fucking faggot.
That student aligns upper arms with Kingery and gives him a side-shove.
THAT STUDENT: Get out of here, bro.
The group of male students surround Kingery, pleading with him to just leave. Kingery can be seen zipping up his backpack as the video ends.
Kingery was ultimately arrested; video taken about 20 minutes after he was ejected from the classroom shows officers carrying the student, hog-tied, out of the building. He was arrested “on suspicion of making criminal threats, assault and vandalism,” according to KTLA.
The Panther reports that, while in the back of a parked OPD vehicle, the Connecticut native could be heard screaming, wishing to be unrestrained and released” and that he “yelled expletives and racial slurs at officers on the scene.”
In addition to the earlier charges, the boozy bigot was ultimately charged with elder abuse, due to assaulting a CPS officer over the age of 65; he was released early Wednesday morning. By Thursday—just two days after the incident—Kingery was a Chapman student no longer.
As the Daily Mail notes, Kingery is a registered Republican; his father, Jim, owns two car dealerships. Beyond the classroom boasting of “$50 million,” it’s unclear what either Kingery’s actual net worth might be, which of course doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this young man felt not just entitled, but empowered to speak his hateful thoughts in his classroom that day. Was he drunk? It seems so. His father, who notably neglected to acknowledge his son’s hateful behavior in his interview with his local paper, specifically vowed to get his “great kid” some “help.”
Does drinking at 11 AM indicate a problem for which one needs “help?” Football tailgaters may beg to differ, as will fans of bottomless mimosa brunches, but let’s move on, since we as a society hold people accountable for their actions when they’re under the influence. “I was drunk” is not a viable defense for bad deeds. In a deadly car accident, it’s actually a confession.
“Been drinking Bacardi all day” doesn’t undo domestic violence or bar fights or sexual assault, and it certainly doesn’t fix the laptop computer Kingery stomped or heal the elderly police officer he injured. It just grants context for the hate Kingery attempted to spread as he looked for a fight, even hoping some black people were in the room to hear his vile exclamations. This is not the first time private college’s social climate as a whole has come under increased scrutiny. The school, which cost over $63,000 per year in 2017, is located behind the so-called “Orange Curtain,” in longtime Republican stronghold Orange County, faced significant backlash when it invited established smokey-eyed liar and former Trump mouthpiece Sarah Huckabee-Sanders to the opening of its new Center for Freedom of Expression and Media Integrity in late 2019. The school, while expensive, is neither particularly competitive nor particularly diverse; in 2017, just 1.83% of Chapman students were black.
According the school’s own website, the majority of diversity and inclusion initiatives began during Barack Obama’s second term. Just last August, Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Patriot Front papered the campus with flyers. Months earlier, in April, university President Daniele Struppa rejected students’ requests that a prominent poster for the racist, pro-KKK film The Birth of a Nation be removed, only caving after continued protests and a faculty vote. Even before that, it was no secret that black students didn’t consider Chapman to be “a good fit.”
On the other hand, Dayton Kingery obviously felt at home there.