Main: John Sheeran leaving court on Sept. 11, 2023 (WFXT). Inset: The pond where Sheeran tried to drown a Black teen last year (WFXT).
A white 15-year-old in Massachusetts has admitted to carrying out a racially-motivated attack last year in which he tried to drown a Black teen while calling him racial slurs and referring to the victim as “George Floyd” because he was unable to breathe.
John P. Sheeran earlier this month pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, the Cape Cod Times reported. Sheeran is charged as a “youthful offender,” meaning Barnstable Juvenile Court Judge Sylvia Gomes could still choose to sentence him as an adult.
Under Massachusetts’ youthful offender statute, prosecutors can seek adult sentences for juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17 under certain circumstances. Those circumstances require that the juvenile is charged with a felony and is accused of inflicting or threatening serious bodily harm, committed a firearms offense, or has previously been committed to the Department of Youth Services.
Unlike juvenile hearings, the proceedings for individuals prosecuted under the youthful offender statute are open to the public. For sentencing, a youthful offender can be sentenced to the same maximum penalty as an adult, committed to youth services until they reach age 21, or a combination of the two.
According to a report from the Cape Cod Chronicle, Sheeran reached a deal with prosecutors in the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office. The agreement includes a suspended three-year sentence, 20 hours per month of community service, and requires Sheeran to complete a behavioral education program. The terms also mandate that Sheeran write an apology to the victim while prohibiting him from having any additional contact with the victim.
However, Gomes during the Dec. 13, 2024, hearing reportedly said she was not required to abide by the jointly recommended terms of the agreement. Should she impose a harsher sentence, Sheehan will be released from the agreement and permitted to proceed to trial in March 2025.
Another white teen was also arrested in connection with the attack. He is accused of harassing the victim, but unlike Sheeran, the second suspect is charged as a juvenile and thus his identity has not been released.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, the incident took place at the Goose Pond in Chatham, Massachusetts, at about 3 p.m. on July 19, 2023 and involved Sheeran, the other white juvenile, and the 15-year-old male victim. The pond is about an 85-mile drive from Boston.
Prosecutors said the three boys met at the pond and that upon Sheeran’s arrival, he “picked up a stone, threatened the victim with it” and then “made the racially charged statement, ‘N—–‘ to the victim.”
Prosecutors said that before entering the water, the victim put on a life jacket and told Sheeran and the other boy that he did not know how to swim. The three boys then entered the water together, police said.
“Once in the water, the juvenile defendant proceeded to pull on the victim’s life jacket and submerged him underwater 4 to 5 times, causing the victim breathing distress,” prosecutors wrote in a press release. “The third juvenile laughed at the victim during the attempted drowning and referred to the victim as ‘George Floyd.’ The attack continued as the juvenile defendant swam underneath the victim and attempted to grab his feet to again pull the victim underwater.”
The victim began yelling for someone on the beach to help him, and the alleged attack ended when a bystander intervened, entering the water and helping the victim ashore.
According to court documents obtained by Nashua, New Hampshire, NBC affiliate WBTS, the individual who intervened on the victim’s behalf was also a juvenile male who provided a statement to police. In that statement, the boy reportedly said that he overheard the victim asking Sheeran to “please not splash or push him because of his inability to swim.” After that, the boy said he witnessed Sheeran “pushing [the victim’s] head under water” while the victim was “screaming for help.” The juvenile reportedly said that when he went to help the victim, Sheeran and the boy he was with “were smirking” at him.
The victim also provided a statement to police, saying that as soon as he got to the pond, Sheeran started calling him racial slurs, throwing rocks at him, and threatening to beat him up, Boston Fox affiliate WFXT reported.
“[Sheeran] held on to my life jacket and pulled me underwater and back up about 4-5 times,” the victim wrote in a statement to authorities. “[W]hile doing it, water got into my mouth and nose, and I could not breathe.”
The victim reportedly added that Sheeran kicked and pushed him under the water while calling him “George Floyd” — an apparent reference to the 2020 death of Floyd, who was Black, at the hands of Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of Floyd’s murder.
Prosecutors said that at about 8:15 p.m. on the same evening as the alleged attack at the lake, Sheeran also struck an Asian child in the face and called him racial slurs, WFXT reported.
Sheeran’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, last year told the Boston Globe that the charges against his client were “over the top,” claiming the teens were merely “horseplaying” when the situation got “out of control.”
Sheeran will appear in court again for his sentencing hearing on Feb. 5, 2025.
