Prayer Requests for Jimmy Coyne's Grandson, High School Student Beaten Over School Walkout-Disputed!

Prayer Requests for Jimmy Coyne’s Grandson, High School Student Beaten Over School Walkout-Disputed!

Summary of eRumor:

Social meda was flooded with prayer requests for Jimmy Coyne’s grandson, a teenager from Oklahoma who was reportedly beaten for not supporting a school walkout to protest gun violence.
The Truth:
About an hour and half after a school walkout, a 16-year-old student from Glenpool, Oklahoma, suffered significant injuries in a fight, but details about the fight and Jimmy Coyne’s prayer request are disputed.
The rumor unfolded after a Facebook community group called “The Newly Press” asked readers to keep Jimmy Coyne and his grandson in their prayers because be was beaten for not participating in school walkouts. Within days, the post had been shared nearly 100,000 times and was being used to portray student protests as violent or hypocritical.

The Jimmy Coyne prayer request was started by a Facebook community group called The Newly Press that advocates for 2nd Amendment rights.

The post includes few details, but a simple search for “Jimmy Coyne” on Facebook reveals that he is a real person who has recently posted about his grandson being attacked at school. Coyne posted on March 18 that his grandson was back “home and doing much better” after a hospital stay.

Jimmy Coyne confirmed that his grandson was beaten in a school altercation, but didn’t provide further details.

Coyne didn’t mention a school walkout in his original post. Someone identifying themselves as a family member did, however. A viral Facebook post states that the boy was attacked “because he did not participate in the walk out” that students had organized earlier in the day.

A family member called for prayers for Jimmy Coyne’s grandson, indicating that he was beaten for opposing a school protest against gun violence.

We can confirm some of those details through local media reports. Police were called to Glenpool High School after “a fight broke out over opinions of a student walkout,” Newson6.com reports.  The report indicated that the altercation started on the social media app Snapchat. School officials confirmed the altercation but declined to provide further details:

Glenpool Public Schools is aware of a student fight which occurred on campus after the lunch period as students were transitioning back to class. The fight occurred at 11:25 approximately one and a half hour after a student led campus walk-out protesting school violence.  Law enforcement and authorities have been made aware of the incident and are investigating. The District is unable to offer any additional detail as the fight involved two district students whose information is subject to protection under both state and federal law. Glenpool Public Schools will fully investigate the incident and take any necessary action allowed under its policies.

Another local media outlet indicated that a video of the fight had been posted on YouTube but was later taken down. KTUL reported that police said “the incident started when the older student allegedly took to Snapchat Tuesday night to voice his disagreement about the walkout. On Wednesday, the older student and a 16-year-old, who was in support of the walkout, got into a fight.” That implies Jimmy Coyne’s grandson was in support of the walkout — and the boy who attacked him was not.
However, Jimmy Coyne disputed that report in a follow-up Facebook post. He wrote that his post had “turned into somewhat of a circus,” noting that Snopes had investigated the rumor (and concluded that it was “unproven”). “There is no valid prayer request put forth by any of us. To be clear, my grandson was *against* the walkout. He was targeted and beaten. There is a valid gofundme account initiated by a non-family individual in Glenpool. Certain individuals and entities are skewing many facts.”

Jimmy Coyne denied that anyone in his families had requested prayers and disputed media reports that his grandson was a supporter of the school protest and the boy who beat him opposed it.

So, while local media quoted police as saying that Jimmy Coyne’s grandson was supportive of the walkout — Coyne has disputed those claims. Coyne has also denied that his family issued a prayer request. Given lack of clear details about circumstances surrounding the fight, and differing accounts, we’re calling the Jimmy Coyne prayer request “disputed.”