Black Lives Matter protesters vandalized the South Carolina home of a soldier charged with assaulting a black man in a now-viral video — forcing his family to move to a safe house, officials said.
Videos showed a large group holding BLM signs and shouting through a megaphone Wednesday as they stood in the street outside 42-year-old drill sergeant Jonathan Pentland’s home just outside Columbia.
“I’m on your yard!” one woman was seen shouting directly at the house believed to belong to Pentland, who went viral for confronting a black man and telling him he was in the “wrong neighborhood, motherf—er.”
“We just want to talk, we want to understand some things, that’s it,” she shouted in the video, as others said, “No justice, no peace!”
“What you gonna do? You gonna stay in here every day?” the main protagonist shouted. Other clips show even more protesters in the street shouting through megaphones later in the day.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department tweeted late Wednesday about how “the protests at the Pentland home have become violent.”
“The family was removed after it was vandalized. They were moved to another location and the neighborhood is being closed off except to residents,” the department said, warning people to “stay out of the area.”
It was not immediately clear if Pentland would have been home at the time as he was arrested Wednesday and charged with third-degree assault and battery for Monday’s caught-on-camera encounter.
The clip did not show what led up to the confrontation, but a woman could be heard accusing the stranger of picking a fight with “some random young lady,” which he denied.
Sheriff Leon Lott later said that man had been involved in other incidents in the neighborhood in the days leading up to the video but “none of them justified the assault that occurred.”
He did not elaborate on what he was accused of doing and refused to identify him.
“The first time I saw the video, it was terrible. It was unnecessary,” Lott said.
Pentland has been stationed at Fort Jackson since 2019 and has worked as a drill sergeant at the garrison, a 53,000-acre complex that trains 50 percent of all soldiers and 60 percent of women who enter the Army each year.
“The leaders at Fort Jackson in no way condone the behavior depicted in the video posted recently,” said Fort Jackson commander Brig. Gen. Milford Beagle Jr.
“This action deeply impacts our community — the neighbors in the Summit, the city of Columbia, Richland & Lexington counties, and our Army family,” Beagle said.
The Department of Justice is also investigating, the Army confirmed.
With Post wires
