Teens' Street Fight Ends in ... a Viral Handshake

Ibn Ali Miller is sad more people don't step in like he did in scuffle between boys
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 23, 2017 8:27 AM CDT

Ibn Ali Miller is distressed. Not because he was able to talk down two teens who were involved in an Atlantic City street fight, nor because the Facebook video of him doing so has now gone viral—and definitely not because LeBron James acknowledged him on Twitter for what people are calling his "unbelievable" mediating efforts. It's because he doesn't think any of this is a normal reaction. "This should be very believable … this should be regular," he tearfully said Wednesday after Atlantic City's city council honored him for his actions, per the AP. The video, which has been shared nearly 725,000 times as of this writing, shows the two young men going at it in the street—until Miller, a student and dad of five, happened upon the scene while taking care of an errand, the Press of Atlantic City reports.

Positioning himself between the two, Miller implores the kids to knock it off, telling them they're "almost men." He also calls out the spectators giggling and recording the scuffle on their phones, deeming them "cowards," then makes the two teens, after some resistance, shake hands. Jamar Mobley, one of the boys in the fight (and on whose phone the fight was recorded), offered thanks to Miller and tells CBS Philly "it could have gone a whole other way" had Miller not stepped in. Miller, for his part, called the two boys, who stood next to him after the council meeting, "young men of reason" and thanked their mothers, as well as his own mom for making him write a story or poem whenever he got into trouble as a kid, per the AP. Miller's kindergarten teacher tells the Press he was a mediator even as a 5-year-old. "He was a peacemaker," she says. (A teen fights gun violence in his town.)

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