Police: Racially Charged Incidents at Arundel High School are Separate
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- The Anne Arundel County Police Department has clarified the events concerning racially charged incidents in the past week in a release Friday.
Jan. 6, officers were made aware of a petition containing racially charged, highly offensive language, and anti-African-American views that was passed around among a few students at Arundel High School.
School administrators recovered the petition and quickly identified the student responsible and two other students who signed the petition. After meeting with the State's Attorney's Office, the Police Department confirmed that the petition and behaviors of these students, who were white, were both disturbing and reprehensible but did not to rise to the level of a criminal offense. The school handled the incident internally.
On Monday, officers were notified by school administrators of a threatening Twitter post. The poster used similar language to the racist petition recovered by administrators.
RELATED: Police Charge Student For Threat Made At Arundel High School
The account was created under the name @KoolkidsKlanKkk and contained a tweet that read, "We're planning to attack tomorrow." A large number of students did not report to school for fear of their safety.
Detectives were able to identify the person responsible for creating the Twitter account and tweeting the threatening post. That person was identified as a 14–year-old African-American student who attends Arundel High School. Since the post stated a direct threat of violence and caused serious concern and disruption of a large number of students, she was charged on a juvenile citation with disruption of school activities and released to her parents.
These two incidents are being handled as separate incidents and are related only by the name "Kool Kids Klan" that was used in the petition Jan. 6 and the Twitter account created on January 9. The girl involved in the second incident had no involvement in the incident on Jan. 6, according to police.
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