A white student from a Louisiana high school has been arrested after video of a racist attack on a Black student went viral. The 15-year-old was charged with simple battery and a hate crime.
A white teen who was filmed throwing a handful of cotton balls on a Black teen in the Vandebilt Catholic High School’s cafeteria during lunchtime, was arrested on Tuesday, March 15, by the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s office for perpetrating a race-based hate crime and committing simple battery.
The incident was caught on camera on Wednesday, March 9, and placed on social media, and is now viral.
To further humiliate the Black student, after cascading the white cotton balls over his head, the white teen pulled out a leather strap and whipped the back of the African-American child. The Black student eventually gets up and pushes the aggressor while students jeer and laugh in the background.
By using cotton, a crop textile that enslaved Africans planted and picked in Louisiana during the antebellum South, and whipping him with the belt, the white child invoked the imagery of America’s greatest sin, making the act a hate crime.
After the incident went public, Vandebilt Catholic officials issued a statement saying, “School officials are working in cooperation with diocesan officials, students, and parents to investigate this matter and are committed to ensuring that all individuals involved are held accountable in accordance with school policies.”
Police report the boy is now booked into the Terrebonne Parish Juvenile Justice Center.
The Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux declined to comment on the teen’s arrest, but the archdiocese issued a statement the day after the incident, rebuking the conduct of the student who was arrested. It read in part, “[Wednesday’s] actions by a few are not consistent with the values and mission of our school.”
Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Tim Soignet said he was “very pleased that the school took a front stand on this” incident.
“When we received the complaint, we immediately put our detectives on it,” Soignet wrote in a statement. “They worked through the weekend so we could get to this point and effect an arrest on that juvenile.”
Terrebonne Parish NAACP President Jerome Boykin also saluted the school administration and local police for taking the incident seriously.
Boykin said, “Vandebilt Catholic High School’s administration and the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office sent a strong message to the community that this type of crime will not be tolerated. The young man is only 15 years of age, and I hope that he can learn from his mistake.”
The victim of the bullying is one of very few students of color in the school. In fact, Vandebilt Catholic High School is very not diverse at all, according to Great Schools, a school review website. The high school has a whopping 91 percent white student population with Black students making up 5 percent.
The Black student’s parents also issued remarks, saying, “We will continue to pray for our school community as a whole, that we not only get through this together but that we each learn a valuable lesson from what has taken place.”
Many on social media were not as understanding, calling for the parents to be held accountable along with their child. “Please hold his parents accountable. They raised a son to be like this…,” read a tweet from The Kings College professor.
According to the sheriff, the case is still considered open and more investigating needs to take place.
“It’s not as simple as watching the video and making an arrest,” Soignet said. “We wanted to do a very thorough investigation, and that’s what they were able to do. When you’re dealing with juveniles, it’s a different challenge all on its own. It’s not like dealing with adults.”
