A black principal, four white teens and the 'senior prank' that became a hate crime

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The principal saw a swastika first. It was inky black, spray painted on a trash can just beside the entrance to the high school. David Burton switched off the engine of his SUV, unaware, even then, of the magnitude of what he was about to see.

This was the last day of the year for the class of 2018 at Glenelg High School. There was going to be an awards ceremony, a picnic, that end-of-a-journey feeling that always made Burton so proud of his job. But as he was on his way to work at 6:25 a.m., the assistant principal had called, agitated and yelling about graffiti. “It’s everywhere,” he kept saying, so Burton had leaned on the gas and rushed the last few miles.

Soon, everyone would be telling him how shocked they were. This was Howard County, after all: a Maryland suburb between Washington and Baltimore that is extremely diverse, extremely well-educated and home to Columbia, a planned community founded on the principles of integration and inclusion. People moved their families here for that reputation just as much as for the good schools.

“Pleasantville,” Burton liked to call it, but as a black man, and as the principal of the county’s only majority-white school, he knew this place was more complicated. When he stepped out into the bright spring day, he confronted the reality of just how much more.

Beneath his dress shoes, there were more swastikas. Spray painted around them were crude drawings of penises.

Then Burton saw the letters “KKK.” He saw the word “Fuck” again and again next to the words “Jews,” “Fags,” “Nigs” and “Burton.”

He kept walking, following the graffiti around the building’s perimeter. It was on the sidewalks, the trash cans, the loading dock, the stadium around back. There were more than 100 markings in total, though he didn’t bother to count.

He turned a corner and saw something written in large capital letters on the sidewalk: “BURTON IS A NIGGER.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/teen-graffiti-hate-crime-divides-maryland-high-school/?utm_term=.31ecfea87e42&wpisrc=al_trending_now__alert-local--alert-national&wpmk=1

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

Cameras captured four students vandalizing Glenelg High School in Howard County, Md., on May 23, 2018. A small portion of the video has been blurred due to offensive content. (Howard County Circuit Court)


From left: Police mug shots of Seth Taylor, Tyler Curtiss, Joshua Shaffer and Matthew Lipp. (Howard County police)

[ProudLib72]

2. Hey, don't dox these poor babies!

Don't you know that could hurt their chances of getting into an ivy league college?

[WhiteTara]

3. Those are what punks look like

I hope they spend a long time in prison.

[dalton99a]

5. They got probation, community service, and several weekends in jail

All four will be eligible to get the hate crimes expunged from their record when their probation is finished.

[sir pball]

13. I don't agree w/expungement, but it ain't what it used to be

Any prospective employer who plugs these maggots' names into Google is gonna know the whole story in very short order. Thankfully we don't have a misguided European-style "right to be forgotten".

So glad I got all my shenanigans (what I did, NOT what these shitheels did) done 20 years ago, you'd have to dig pretty deep to find a trace of my single cleared record

[sir pball]

21. I understand the visceral, vengeful response

But would throwing them in prison for years, where they'll most likely learn to hate, then dumping them on the street with no chance for anything besides a hardscrabble, menial existence of trivial labor and resentment serve anyone, them or society, for the best? Especially relatively youthful offenders like this...unless you believe people just can't change. Hopefully they do; if not, well, I doubt this is the only time they'll face hate crime charges.

I'm not saying they should be let off with "pay for the damage, help feed the homeless, and say you're sorry" like I did for my youthful misadventures (to be clear what they did is NOT a misadventure), but on the other hand in the long term I'm fine with any ambitions like college or the military they may have had being taken away, but not leaving them with nothing left to lose. I'm sure Seth up there wouldn't have had HVAC tech as his first career choice.

[bobbieinok]

10. Shaffer kid looks like he thinks he's super entitled to do anything he chooses

Believe Google shows him on track and field --Facebook link

[maxrandb]

15. Future Retrumplican supreme court nominees

[exboyfil]

4. Definitely not Einsteins

However, the next morning school administration would identify the four because their phones had automatically connected to the school’s Wi-Fi network during the time they were defacing the school.

[TruckFump]

7. What idiots.

As dumb as they are bigotted.

The punishment they got was not near enough, IMO.

[oasis]

6. Trumpnazi contagion. nt

[Gothmog]

8. I read the entire article

This was a powerful article and I feel that the young men got off easy

[hlthe2b]

9. This is a very well written article. Highly recommend reading the entire thing.

[AJT]

11. and after all that in 2018.......2019s "prank":

Then he saw it: this year’s version of a senior prank. A tractor was pulling into the parking lot. On the front was an old couch bolted to the forklift, a sign that read “2019,” and a few students sprawled on the cushions. On the back was a blue flag. “TRUMP,” it read, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

[sir pball]

14. Not defending it, but that probably actually is protected speech

I don't see any kind of case beyond whatever illegalities would be involved in the physical act (were they authorized to use the forklift? To leave it on school property? Illegal dumping maybe?); the speech expressed is merely political.

[AJT]

16. I'm not thinking of it as illegal, just horrible, privileged, white trash thinking it's funny.

[sir pball]

17. Oh, it's definitely an abysmally shitty, disgusting idea of a "prank"

Definitely a "ha ha you can't do anything about THIS you dumb libtards, how ya like it now?" thing. Having grown up with a little sister, among other things, I can thoroughly avoid being needled in the least by stunts like this, but I understand some people's reaction.

[AJT]

18. I sometimes think the best way to react to a rightwing nut job is to laugh at them.

Just roll your eyes and laugh. My initial instinct, of course would be to try to explain facts and reality in an angry way, but you can't reach them anyway and anger just feeds them.

[sir pball]

19. Exactly, they want to "stick it to the libruls"

I just chuckle and say something along the lines of "if it makes you feel better about your miserable little existence to think so, you go ahead and think that all you want." Don't even get me started on when somebody tries to gloat they've "triggered" me...

[AJT]

20. A condescending "bless your heart" is always a good stab, of your a woman.

I'm not sure men use that phrase.

[sir pball]

22. I actually do lol

I learned it from my Lousiana-born-and-bred wife; I use it up here all the time. "Touched", too. Wouldn't use it down there, though.

[spanone]

12. good people on both sides....don trump

[Initech]

23. Moral of the story: hate gets you nowhere. Don't hate.