When some older kids taunted Utah schoolboy Mateus Romualdo with a racial insult as he walked home on his own, he felt scared. But basketball coach Troy Harlan stepped in to show him he wasn’t alone.

When racist bullies struck in a Utah street, schoolboy Mateus Romualdo was terrified. Shaken by the frightening incident, the young kid was left in fear of his life. But when his mom Heather shared the story online, his community soon rallied round to show him support.

It was October 5, 2017, and Mateus, an 11-year-old boy, was making his way home after class. Viewmont Elementary, the school that he attended, lay about a mile from where he lived, in Murray, Utah.

Murray is a small city in the Utah heartland. Once an industrial hub, it’s now a bustling center in Salt Lake County. And in common with most of the state of Utah, Murray does not house many people of color, making Mateus something of a rarity.

Be that as it may, he could not have expected what happened on this particular fall afternoon. A terrifying episode was about to unravel that would make Mateus believe that he might even be shot. As the schoolboy strolled through the streets of Murray, some shouting suddenly stopped him in his tracks.

A group of teens were hailing him from a passing car, and it was what Mateus heard them yelling that would leave him scared for his safety. That’s because the youngsters in the car were screaming an insult based on his race.

Moreover, they didn’t holler the slur just the once. As a matter of fact, the older kids shouted the taunt over and over. And Mateus had become very aware that he was out on his own, with no one to protect him from the bullies. Indeed, the ordeal left him scared out of his wits.

With that in mind, Mateus phoned his mom, Heather Romualdo, to tell her about the racial torment that he had suffered. And it seems that Mateus had been left more than alarmed by what had happened.

Heather recounted to Salt Lake City’s Fox 13 what Mateus had shared with her about the incident. She said, “He felt very terrified and actually told me he thought the kids were going to shoot him.” And hearing his distress left her determined to do something about it.

To that end, Heather wanted to let friends and family know what had occurred. So she wrote about the upsetting details of the incident on Facebook. But she could not have known the impact that it would have when her post made its way rapidly around the community.

Among those who read what Heather had to say was Troy Harlan, who coaches Mateus in basketball. And when Harlan learned how severely the event had affected Mateus, he reckoned he should find a way to show support for him.

That’s because Harlan felt that he could really sympathize with the schoolboy. “I’ve gone through all that,” the basketball coach told Fox 13. “I grew up in Davis County and I know what it feels like to be one of only two black kids at my school.”

So with the intention of showing that solidarity with Mateus, Harlan set to work. He had hit upon an idea that would demonstrate to the boy that he was not alone. To that end, he set up a group walk from Mateus’ school to a park nearby his home.

To begin with, Harlan advertised the walk on Facebook. But he didn’t stop there; using his contacts in basketball, he arranged for some special supporters to join Mateus in the group promenade. The Utah Jazz Bear – mascot of nearby Salt Lake City’s basketball team – agreed to get behind the bullied kid.

But that wasn’t all because Thurl Bailey, a former star of the Jazz, turned up too. And alongside him were scores of the Romualdos’ friends and family. It seems that they were all determined to show Mateus that he didn’t need to fear the trip from school to home.

The crowd that gathered weren’t just there to help restore Mateus’ sense of safety, though. There were other things on the agenda too. Indeed, Mateus’ buddies held up placards showing their unwillingness to tolerate racism and promoting cultural togetherness.

Harlan believed that the walk could make a statement to people like those who had scared Mateus. “The message I want to happen is that people need to be held accountable,” he told Fox 13. “You’re not born to hate people; you’re taught to hate people. I don’t care what color you are: we are all the same.”

Meanwhile, Heather reported the incident to the police, who began looking into it. However, the bullies weren’t easy to identify, so it may be that they are never held to account for their cowardly and discriminating behavior towards Mateus.

Sadly, this display of harassment is by no means an isolated case. And Mateus is not alone in feeling the way he did – according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, one in five American children say that they have been bullied. This can have harsh outcomes, with some affected kids suffering downturns in both physical and mental health.

However, sometimes the bullied kids do strike back. Rory McGuire, from Ayr in Scotland, was born with a birthmark on his face and had to withstand many years of bullying because of it. But today, he proudly shows off that face as a model. What’s more, he has fronted an effort to have the kind of behavior he suffered classified as a hate crime.

Consequently, McGuire has a message for those who are picked on by others for their looks. He told Scottish newspaper the Daily Record that victims and those around them should “speak up, speak out, together let’s stop it.”