(Image source from: ndtvimg.com)

A teenager from the United States who was seen in an arguable video where he poked fun at a Native American elder, has sued The Washington Post for “compensatory and punitive damages”.

Kentucky-based law firm Hemmer DeFrank Wessels on Tuesday said on its website that attorneys Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry have filed the lawsuit on behalf of Nicholas Sandmann against the newspaper, seeking USD 250 million in damages, according to a report by CNN.

“This is only the beginning,” the firm added.

Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, Park Hills, Kentucky, was in Washington on January 18 for the annual “March for Life” rally wearing a red “Make American Great Again” hat.

In the video that gained national attention, he was in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was playing the drum and chanting at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day.

Another video that surfaced days later provided additional context for the encounter, but the first video had gone viral, touching off widespread accusations of bigotry as photos of the teenager spread across social media.

In the second video, a group of black men who identified as members of the Hebrew Israelites was seen taunting the students from Covington Catholic High School with derogatory language and calling out racist slurs at participants of the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.

According to lawsuit claims, Post “wrongfully targeted and bullied Nicholas because he was the white, Catholic student wearing the red cap”.

A Washington Post spokeswoman told CNN that the paper is “reviewing a copy of the lawsuit and we plan to mount a vigorous defense”. Sandmann defended his actions at the time, saying he was trying to defuse the tension and denied allegations that anyone was acting out of racism.

-Sowmya Sangam