Last week, YouTube personality Jake Paul was filmed in the middle of a mall that was being looted in Arizona.
Many fans got mad at what he was doing but according to Deadline, he immediately denied that he was looting. In his statement, he said that neither he nor anyone from his friends had any part in the looting and vandalism being done at the mall. Furthermore, he explained that what he and his friends were doing was to protest peacefully for the Black Lives Matter movement.
While they were protesting they were tear-gassed and had to move elsewhere. He says that they were filming the video for documentation and nothing else. But due to his involvement with the protest, he is now charged.
BBC reports that Paul was charged with trespassing and unlawful assembly by the authorities. He is not the only person who was charged in connection with the assembly done at the Scottsdale Fashion Square. Apparently, even when an unlawful assembly was declared, Paul decided to stay at the mall. When authorities received tips about his presence in the assembly, he was then charged. It seems Paul does mind the charges as he tweeted that he should just be charged but the focus should be brought back to what happened to George Floyd and to the whole Black Lives Matter movement.
Jake Paul, who boasts of more than 20 million subscribers on YouTube is the younger brother of Logan Paul, another YouTuber, who had his own share of controversy in the past.
It was on the last day of 2017 when Logan uploaded a video taken in Japan. He and his friends were on a trip to the country and they went to the Aokigahara Forest, which is famous for a place where many go to kill themselves. What made his video controversial was that he and his friends actually chanced upon a man who had committed suicide. They continued to film the corpse and could even be heard joking with each other during the video.
His behavior at the suicide forest, coupled with his behavior in the rest of the videos in Japan did not sit well with many people, who accused him of being insensitive. As a result, he took down the video from his YouTube site and went on a three-week hiatus from the platform.
As for the younger Logan, it is not known whether he plans to make a vlog about the looting in the mall where he protested.