Covington student on Today Show: People judged me based off one expression

Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic student in the middle of a firestorm over an incident in Washington D.C. said he wishes he and his classmates had walked away.

Nick, the 17-year-old in the “Make America Great Again” hat who stands face-to-face with Native American elder Nathan Phillips appeared Wednesday on the Today Show with Savannah Guthrie.

RunSwitch PR, a Louisville-based public relations firm,had been hired by the Sandmann family in the aftermath of the incident to “offer professional counsel with what has become a national media story” and “ensure an accurate recounting of events which occurred this past weekend.”

On Guthrie’s show, Nick said he’s not sorry for standing in front of Phillips, with what some have characterized as a smirk on his face, and listening to him and that he would like to meet Phillips and have a chance to talk with him.

The incident between the Covington Catholic students, a group of Black Hebrew Israelites and a group from the Indigenous Peoples March went viral over the weekend.

More: Analysis: What the video from the incident at the Indigenous Peoples March tell us about what happened

Phillips was quickly circled by students who begin to jump and chant.

Nick talked about the events leading up to the face-off, saying that he and the other students were provoked. He said he felt threatened.

Nick said a chaperone gave them permission to start the chant seen in longer videos. As for why they started chanting, Nick said being positive seemed better than letting the Black Hebrew Israelites “slander us.” The chants were school related, Nick said.

“I certainly hope they didn’t feel threatened by us. I would just say the fact remains they initiated their comments with us. I mean they provoked us into a peaceful response of school spirit,” Nick said.

The Black Hebrew Israelites can be seen in longer videos of the incident harassing different groups of people before interacting with the group of Covington Catholic students.

Nick told Guthrie that he wishes he and his classmates had walked away.

“Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology?” Guthrie asks Nick. “Do you see your own fault in any way?”

Nick responds by saying: “As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. I don’t – I – my position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him. I mean – in hindsight I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.”

Twitter, meanwhile, has suspended an account that helped the video go viral. Twitter prohibits the creation of “fake and misleading accounts,” and the encounter once again demonstrated the power of social media to not just amplify but manipulate narratives, aided by bots and malicious actors out to shape public discourse.

A Twitter representative wrote in an email that “Deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules.” It didn’t elaborate.

The incident went viral over the weekend.

Nick is the student seen standing face to face with Native American elder Nathan Phillips, who approached the students singing and beating a drum. Phillips was quickly circled by students who begin to jump and chant.

Nick is seen in the center of the fray, smirking and smiling while he stands in front of Phillips.

“People judged me based off one expression, which I wasn’t smirking,” Nick said about the expression. “And they’ve gone from there to titling me and labeling me as a racist person.”

As for the “Make America Great Again” hat, Nick said he bought his hat that day from a street vendor.

According to Phillips, he approached the group of teenagers after he felt that their interactions with a group of Black Hebrew Israelites were going to escalate.

Phillips said some of the members of the Black Hebrew group were also acting up, “saying some harsh things” and that one member spit in the direction of the Catholic students. “So I put myself in between that, between a rock and hard place,” he said.

“There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips told the Detroit Free Press. “These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that.”

More: Analysis: What the video from the incident at the Indigenous Peoples March tell us about what happened

More: Key players in the confrontation between demonstrators and CovCath students in Washington

More: President Donald Trump on Twitter: ‘Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly’

More: Covington Catholic student from incident at the Indigenous Peoples March issues statement with his side of the story

More: Nathan Phillips wants to meet with Covington Catholic students

More: Rally held at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington: ‘An opportunity for growth’

Associated Press contributed.