The “Protesters” Don’t Like The Free Hugs Guy

The “Free Hugs Guy” in Charlotte.

Charlotte, North Carolina – Ken E. Nwadike Jr., also known as “the free hugs guy”, showed up in Charlotte during the protests to spread his message of peace. The “protesters” weren’t too happy.

According to The Free Hug Project’s Website, the movement was started after founder Ken E. Nwadike Jr. didn’t qualify to be in the 2014 Boston Marathon. The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing inspired him to participate in the race. When he couldn’t be in the race, he went anyways just so he could hand out some free hugs.

The video of him handing out free hugs at the 2014 Boston Marathon went viral overnight on YouTube. Since then, the Free Hugs Guy has been traveling all over the country giving out free hugs and motivational speeches at college universities.

The Free Hugs Guy even popped up at the Charlotte riots the past few days. One video showing him trying to calm down protesters after hugging riot police has gone viral. The video below has been shared over 23 million times since Thursday morning.

The video starts off with the Free Hugs Guy giving hugs to police who are trying to keep the calm in the midst of all the rioting and looting. As soon as he shows the smallest amount of compassion towards police, you can hear several men yelling “you a pussy nigga!”.

Ken Nwadike Jr. points at the police and asks “did he kill somebody, did he kill somebody?”. The man replies back “they squad did that shit!”. Ken tries to explain to the crowd that it’s about staying neutral, it’s not about being violent. He tries to explain to the crowd that an individual officer’s actions don’t represent Law enforcement as a whole. The crowd continues to berate him with names and threats. Two females won’t even let him get a word in.

I’m sure that some people received his message well, but others just couldn’t get it. Ken explains to one man “These men (the police) still feel pain when they take the uniform off”.

The video continues on with Ken and his friends trying to calm people down. Some listened to him, but many didn’t.

Ken, thank you for spreading your message of peace and trying to keep people under control in Charlotte. Thank you also for your compassion towards officers when other people were throwing bricks at them.