Facebook clip showing teenage girls punch 62-year-old receives a million views

A vicious attack video showing the moment two teenage girls assaulted a 62-year-old man with a cane – apparently to share the video on social media – has gone viral and resulted in the pair's arrest.

The footage of the assault was uploaded on Facebook where it has received more than one million views, and has now landed the girls, aged 14 and 15, with charges for third degree assault.

Local New York news channel WSTM-TV reported that the pair and a friend who filmed the attack accosted the man outside his home in Syracuse. The incident occurred on Wednesday (19 October) according to police reports.

In the clip the girls, who have a number of other young people around them, can be seen confronting the man before one strikes him with a closed fist. Still standing, the man attempts to stop one of the group with his walking stick before the second girl hits him and spins him around.

Having received two heavy blows, the victim staggers forward and falls hard, head-over-heals, onto the tarmac. The man has said as a result he was left with one bruised eye and is recovering from the attack.

The video has been shared so widely that the man has said he received messages of concern from relatives in Ireland who watched it.

One of the girls, neither of whom have been named because of their age, has been asked by her mother to apologise for the attack saying it was uncalled for. She said her daughter will "face the consequences and is accepting full responsibility".