TikToker Runs Over 2 Miles With Flat-Screen Television To Give A Message, Video Goes Viral

A white man in Florida, a TikTok enthusiast, ran about 2.23 miles Friday carrying a flat-screen television in a video to make a strong point and the content has since gone viral.

Richard Demsick, who goes by @jestertotheking on TikTok, was seen on the video performing the act which he said was a mark of solidarity to those demanding justice for Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black jogger, who was fatally shot by a white father-son duo Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael, citing the victim resembled a man behind a string of residential break-ins.

Demsick, 34, a former pastor in Vero Beach, Florida, told Insider that “being a suspicious character isn't enough that someone should be shot down.” He said he was sure he wouldn’t meet the same fate as Arbery given he is a white person. "I just started crying when I just saw this poor young man running — as I have thousands of times in my life — get shot down," Demsick said, referring to Arbery.

Demsick, bent on proving his point, took part in the #IRunWithMaud movement, a virtual protest in honor of what would have been Arbery’s 26^th birthday. The 2.23 miles represented the date Arbery was shot to death, Feb. 23. The video has garnered over 1.2 million views to date.

"All right, I figured it out. I've got my hat on backwards, I'm shirtless, like I'm on some episode of 'Cops.' I'm running with a TV. Someone's going to stop me now, for sure," Demsick said in the video. "'Cause if not, what was the problem with Ahmaud?"

Demsick said there was an outpour of positive messages for the video. “People have been incredibly kind, undeservedly kind,” he told the outlet. “There are people who are daily working trying to correct the injustice. I just made a video."

The TikToker said he was planning to roll out more content to draw attention to the racial hypocrisy in the country. He told the outlet that he was further planning to make a video showing him pick a person’s lock if only he got permission from a homeowner, to check what reactions he would get from the people living nearby.

“Nobody would call the cops. We all know that if I looked different, that would be a very different story,” he said.