Minnesota dad takes to YouTube to defend cyberbullied daughter

UPDATE: One of the families accused in cyber bullying a Minnesota girl has apologized for the slurs, reports WCCO Read more for the latest on the story and the family's statement on how it happened here.

A school district in Minnesota is looking into allegations of bullying after a father's online effort to fight back.

Brad Knudson went on YouTube to expose the alleged bullies who he said targeted his 14-year-old daughter. As of Friday morning, the video has been viewed more than 1.4 million times, but his online crusade also turned up a surprise in his own home, reports Minneapolis CBS station WCCO's Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield.

Dee Dee Knudson is the youngest of five children in her family, who live in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Her parents adopted her at age 3. She's grown up into a devoted athlete and a bit of a daddy's girl.

She said their cross-cultural family sometimes gets some stares, but nothing like what happened on New Year's Eve.

"I looked at my phone and there was just a random video saying that I was the n-word and I was a slut," Dee Dee said.

Some teens DeeDee barely knew sent her a series of Snapchats, video messages that disappear after they are played. When dad was told, he was able to catch one of them on video.

"You're such a slut, such a slut, n-----, n-----," the video said.

Knudson filed a police report and didn't want to press charges, but he did want to talk to the parents of the ninth graders who sent the Snap Chat.

After a heated discussion, Knudson shared the whole story on YouTube.

Knudson played both the Snapchat video sent to his daughter and the response he received from the father of the teens who sent it.

"Ultimately it's the parents who are going to stop this behavior, and he clearly told me that it was acceptable in his house," Knudson said.

But it also brought to light an issue in his own home. A day after his video was released, his daughter made a Snapchat video of her own, using the same racial slur.

"Let's go n-----. Let's go!" Dee Dee said in the video.

"I was excited and not paying attention to what I was saying but I did use it in a different meaning," she said.

Her dad was not pleased.

"I am very, very disappointed that my daughter at first did not learn from this experience," Knudson said.

He and his wife are starting a support group to share with other parents what they've learned, but the person he hopes to reach the most is the dad of the person who sent the offensive message.

"I would like to have an discussion with him about how it made me feel as a father to hear those words and help him understand, what this has done to me and my family," Knudson said.