High School Student Who Punched Visually-Impaired Teen Arrested

The Huntington Beach High School student who was caught on video punching a fellow student, who is visually impaired, has been arrested, police said.

In an update to their Facebook page, the Huntington Beach Police Department said that an in-depth investigation conducted by school officials and detectives determined the circumstances of the fight. "Officials learned the victim, who has a degree of visual impairment, and suspect know each other and have a history of not getting along," the statement reads.

The video shows the suspect to the right of the frame striking the victim several times, who doesn't appear to fight back. A third student who saw the fight intervened to stop the suspect, and "struck the suspect, knocking him to the ground and stopping any further attack," police said.

KTLA reports that the victim's visual impairment did not render him defenseless, and that his impairment did not appear to provoke the fight, police said.

The brother of the suspect told NBC LAthat he believes the visually-impaired student was the one who egged on his brother in the first place, and considers him the real victim, having been struck himself by the third boy who intervened at the end of the video.

"This so-called hero, he comes up and punches him in the back of the head," he said. "Pretty wrong, if you ask me. He could've killed him."

The suspect was arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge and was released to his parents. The third "hero" student is not expected to be arrested for his involvement, but the Daily Mail reported he was suspended from school and kicked off the football team for violating the school's "zero-tolerance" policy on violence. An online petition to reinstate the student—identified as Cody Pines—says, "We believe Cody should be back in school where he belongs. While violence is never the best option what Cody did to defend his friend and classmate was justified." The petition has already garnered over 26,000 signatures.

But despite reports stating that Pines had been kicked off the football team, according to his Twitteraccount, Pines said that he actually quit the team a year ago:

Also on Twitter, Pines shared a tweet from one of his many fans:

Update 9/25, 12:10 p.m.:

Pines told Fox 11 why he felt compelled to intervene. "I really didn't want to hit him, but when you punch a blind kid, that's what made me so mad," he said. "I've always watched videos of bullies beating up kids and getting away with it and to me...I've always been the kid that says 'If that ever happens with me around...it's never going to go down like that.'" Pines went on to praise the victim, identified as "Austin" in the story, as a "cool kid."

Pines also told Fox that he didn't regret punching the suspect—identified in the story as "Noah"— but he was also surprised at police reaction to the incident. "If you arrested a kid, that's going to ruin his life. I don't want him to ruin his life," Pines said.