A white teenage boy has pleaded guilty to trying to drown a 15-year-old Black boy who had considered the white boy to be his “friend.” John P. Sheeran, 15, pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon in a Massachusetts courtroom, according to the Cape Cod Times.  He will be sentenced on Feb. 3, and because he was charged as a “youthful offender,” the judge will have the option to sentence him as either an adult or juvenile under Massachusetts law.  John Sheeran has pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon for throwing rocks at a Black boy while calling him racial slurs, then trying to drown him. (Photos: Youtube) The incident took place on July 19, 2023, at Goose Pond in Catham, Massachusetts, after the Black boy rode a bicycle to the lake to meet up with the other boys, thinking they were his friends. Once at the lake, Sheeran told the Black boy to ride his bike into the lake but the Black boy said the bike belonged to his older brother, according to NBC News. That was when the two white boys began throwing rocks at him. The Black boy, who was unable to swim donned a life jacket and got into the pond where they continued throwing rocks at him and calling him the N-word as well as “boy.” The two white boys then got into the water and swam up to the Black boy which was when Sheeran began pushing his head under water 4-5 times as the other white boy laughed and called him “George Floyd” while the Black boy pleaded that he was unable to breathe. “Water went into my mouth and my nose and I could not breathe,” the Black boy said in a in a written statement to police, according to NBC News. “So I shouted out that I can’t breathe over and over and tried to get his hand off me.” Sheeran also swam under water to grab the Black boy by his feet to continue pulling him down as shocked witnesses looked on. The victim told police that the other boy calling him George Floyd was laughing and “showing no remorse.” George Floyd is the Black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in a 2020 video that sparked protests around the world. A witness who was also a minor then swam out to intervene in the alleged attempted drowning, telling police the victim was telling Sheeran he was unable to swim while Sheeran kept pushing his head under water. “When I finally get to them they were smirking,” the witness wrote in a statement to police. Another witness told police she saw the white boys holding the Black boy under water saying she heard one of boys calling him “George Floyd.” The Black boy swam to shore and told the girl he was unable to swim. He then left the lake, reporting the incident to police two days later, sparking an investigation. A Chatham police officer tried to interview Sheeran but his mother would not allow him to speak without an attorney. Chatham police also spoke to the other white boy who “showed remorse about the incident” and confirmed Sheeran pushed the boy’s head under water. A grand jury indicted Sheeran the following month on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The other boy has been charged as a juvenile, according to the Cape Cod Times. At first, Sheeran was incarcerated without bond but was released on bond two weeks later to the custody of his father. During that hearing, prosecutors told the judge that after he tried drowning the Black boy, Sheeran punched an Asian boy in the face after that boy called him fat. But Sheeran’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, tried to write the incident off as horseplay between friends. “I can assure you, at this point, this young man had absolutely no intent to murder his friend. It was a stupid act that was carried way too far,” Reddington said during the hearing in September in Barnstable County Superior Court where the judge released him, according to WCVB. ‘Showing No Remorse’: White Teen Who Tried to Drown Black Boy While Throwing Rocks At Him and Calling Him Racial Slurs Pleads Guilty to Attempted Murder, Could be Sentenced as An Adult