New Jersey police officers arrested two teens after someone allegedly urinated on a Black girl while using racially offensive names at a homecoming football game Friday night.
Sakeenah Iman, a parent at Lawrence High School, said in a Facebook post Friday that her daughter and her peers attended the game near Lawrence Township.
The area is about five miles northeast of Trenton.
“I don’t know what type of f—ing circus @lawrence township public schools is running,” Iman said. “I am livid!”
Iman detailed in the post that upperclassmen targeted younger Black kids, taunted them and called them n—–s. She also said someone urinated on an eighth-grade student, an incident other social media posts described as involving a young black girl.
“What type of f—ing world are we living in!!? I wanna pull her outta that f—ing school,” the woman said of her daughter.
Trenton City Councilman Jerell Blakeley shared Iman’s post on Facebook Saturday and said he was “extremely disturbed” by the incident.
“Justice will be served against the (perpetrators) of these dastardly and despicable actions,” he said in the post.
Blakeley said his brother and sister graduated from Lawrence High and the councilman remembers racial incidents they had to endure at the school.
“This is absolutely reprehensible,” he said of the recent incident.
Lawrence Township Mayor Christopher Bobbitt said in a Facebook post Saturday he was “deeply disturbed” by the online account of what happened.
“As I have said publicly before, hate has no home in Lawrence Township,” Bobbitt said. “As someone that has felt its sting, I know that bigotry exists and sadly will continue to exist but that doesn’t mean that I give up.”
Bobbitt said he immediately informed the township’s chief of police, the township manager and the school board when he heard about the incident.
“So, what’s next,” Bobbitt asked in the post. “The police need to do their jobs and investigate the matter.”
The councilman also said “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at length about what happens when Black people feel unheard and I will not stand for any unlawful behavior in reaction to this incident.”
“As the saying goes, ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,'” Bobbitt said.
The Lawrence Township Police Department announced the arrests on Twitter Saturday and described the boys as 17-year-olds of Indian descent.
“As a police department, we take these incidents very seriously and we will continue to investigate until all of the facts are uncovered,” police said in another statement on the township Facebook page Saturday. “This type of behavior will not be condoned in our community.”
The Lawrence Township Public Schools district said in a Facebook statement Saturday it’s working closely with the police department to investigate the “alleged bias incident.”
“We take these incidents seriously and we will continue to investigate until all of the facts are uncovered,” the district said on Facebook.
School officials also said in the post that inaccurate information has been shared online in the incident.
“With social media and the news, there is information being shared that is incorrect,” the district stated. “Rumors and misinformation, such as students from another district being involved, are hindering the investigation process.
“In partnership with the police department, we need to be able to do our work to get to facts of the matter.”
The district added, “Once we gather all the facts and information, we will immediately take an appropriate course of action and work to support our students. To echo Mayor Bobbitt, ‘hate has no home in Lawrence Township.’”
