A San Diego mother and her 18-year-old son say he was wrongly identified on social media as the person seen in a viral video assaulting a California sea lion at La Jolla Cove. The video, recorded late July 22 at Point La Jolla, spread widely online after it was reshared on Instagram. The inciden t is under criminal investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a potential violation of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. This is a screenshot of the viral video showing the alleged assault on a California sea lion on July 22, 2026. Ryland Cuttitta said he is not the person shown in the video kicking the sea lion. “My name is Ryland Cuttitta and I was not part of the video. I was not even there or associated with it in any way. It all came from an Instagram comment,” Cuttitta said. His mother, Susan Cuttitta, said she was horrified when she first saw the video scrolling through Instagram stories the day after it was posted. “Oh my gosh, how horrible that there’s this person that’s abusing this animal, that was my gut reaction, and then I moved on to the next story because I didn’t recognize the person,” she told NBC 7 in an exclusive interview sge did with her son, Sunday. She said everything changed after her son called to tell her people were connecting him to the video. “I went what? How are you being associated with it? Well, I made a comment and I think there are folks that took my comment as me being the person in the video,” Susan said. According to the family, Ryland Cuttitta’s comment described the incident as “clearly self defense.” What was meant as sarcasm in response to the animal assault, instead fueled online accusations. In the days that followed, the family said their home address was posted online and they received increasingly violent and vulgar threats. Susan said her son was nowhere near La Jolla Cove when the incident occurred. “It was not my son. He wasn’t there. He was not even 10 miles from the La Jolla incident, and I thought I just need to protect him and my daughters. They are minor children,” Cuttitta said. The family shared several threatening voicemail messages with NBC 7 including death threats directed at Ryland and criticism of Susan as a parent. Ryland also pointed to physical differences between himself and the person shown in the viral video. “Obviously in the video you can see that the kid is blonde with a buzz cut. My hair is dark and longer than that,” he said. He added, “it wasn’t me in the video. I would never do anything like that. It was a very disturbing video.” The family said they filed an online report with the San Diego Police Department regarding the threats and have also spoken with the NOAA investigator handling the sea lion case. “It’s just crazy so many people can see one thing on social media, and just believe it,” Ryland said. ” No one knew what I looked like. I put my account on private so I wouldn’t get harassed.” Maybe this is advocacy work on our part to now spread the word about the dangers of social media.Susan Cuttitta, mother of Ryland Cuttitta wrongly accused of sea lion attack His mother said the experience has become a lesson about the consequences of online behavior. “He’s always done the right thing, and he made a comment. That’s a lesson we will be talking about and continue to talk about,” she said. She also said, “maybe this is advocacy work on our part to now spread the word about the dangers of social media.” Ryland Cuttitta and his mother said they hope the person responsible for assaulting the sea lion is identified and held accountable, and they plan to support the ongoing investigation in any way they can. More than 400 California sea lions can be found on the rocks of the Cove during the summer, La Jolla, Calif. , July 20, 2026. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less