Parent says son’s Trump hat led to school bus attack. Five students have been charged.

Five students face misdemeanor battery charges for a fight on a school bus, according to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.

Video from the Nov. 21 incident shows several students of color punching and slapping a white student.

A Twitter user, who identified herself as the parent of the 14-year old boy, tweeted out an excerpt from the video Thursday afternoon, attaching it to a post from Nov. 21 that implied the attack was racially motivated because the teen wore a President Trump hat. By Friday evening, the video had accrued more than 4 million views and thousands of angry replies.

Warning: the video attached to the tweet shows graphic violence.

By Friday, the social media furor had elicited a response from both Rex Mitchell, the Hamilton County School District superintendent, and the sheriff’s office.

Mitchell says although the parent claimed the confrontation was motivated by the boy wearing a Trump hat, the school district’s investigation found no evidence of any Trump apparel.

Instead, the superintendent characterized the attack as “a verbal altercation between two students that escalated when additional students became involved.” He added that they disciplined the involved students and turned over their findings to the sheriff’s office.

“We absolutely do not condone the use of physical force between students,” Mitchell said in a statement. “... This was a very unfortunate incident completely unrelated to any political statements or agendas.”

The sheriff’s office’s stance mirrored that of the school district. After a discussion with the state attorney’s office, the two agencies decided the incident did not fall into the category of a hate crime.

“It seems that some misinformation has been passed along with the video,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “We at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office are as disturbed about this video as you are.”