A 14-year-old Black boy was racially harassed, threatened and attacked by Hispanic students over a span of several months before he was arrested for trying to defend himself against a knife-wielding student earlier this month, according to recent claim filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The incident that led to the Black student’s arrest took place on Dec. 9 following an early afternoon altercation between himself and at least two other students on school grounds that was recorded on video.
In the beginning of the the 35-second video, an adult female voice can be heard saying, “you can handle it after school” as two students gang up on the Black boy. Towards the end of the video, somebody can be heard saying, “he has a knife,” but it is not clear who exactly has the knife.
But attorney Brad Gage, who filed the claim last week, which is a precursor to filing a lawsuit against a government agency, said it was one of the Hispanic students who threatened to stab him with a “big butcher knife” – only to end up getting stabbed himself along with another student.
“At some point, others that are part of the group or gang; they come and chase our client with a big butcher knife — trying to kill him,” Gage told CBS News.
However, it was the Black student who ended up arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon which are still pending. The two stabbing victims suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Gage said it is a case of self-defense against racial bullying but it is still not clear if the Black boy had his own knife or if he stabbed his attackers with the knife they were threatening to use against him.
“Make no mistake about it, this is a case of racism,” Gage said.
“He was a young student who happened to be Black in a school that has almost no Black people and this has all the elements of racial profiling, racial harassment and a hate crime, and certainly I’d like to see the district attorney’s office prosecuting these folks for their hate crimes on my client.”
School Ignored Abuse
The boy, whose name has not been made public, was attending Verdugo Hills High School, where only 1.5 percent of the student population is Black but 56 percent is Hispanic, according to the California Department of Education.
The police union blamed the conflict on gang activity at the school and the fact that the school district removed police officers from schools in 2020 following a 35 percent reduction in the school district’s police force which is a separate agency from the Los Angeles Police Department.
“So there was literal writing on the wall saying that there’s a problem here,” Gil Gamez, president of the union representing the Los Angeles School Police Department, told the Los Angeles Times in an apparent reference to gang graffiti being tagged on the walls of the school.
But the metaphorical writing on the wall should have been evident since August when the Black boy first started attending the school, only to be attacked in the bathroom by several Hispanic students in a video that was uploaded to the internet.
The Black boy ended up suspended for three days while no disciplinary action was taken against the other students, Gage said.
And when the boy’s mother complained to the school district, administrators failed to discipline the students who attacked her son, which she said encouraged them to continue and escalate the harassment and abuse.
“They don’t care,” she told CBS News. “They didn’t do nothing to the other kid and that’s what I’m most upset about. They just sat there and did nothing.”
It was that inaction that led to the claim, which is demanding $10 million from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“It’s the school’s failure to act properly in August and September that led to a stabbing in December,” Gage said.
The harassment got so bad that they even tagged his home with racial slurs where the boy lives with his mother, according to the claim that refers to the boy as “CS DOE.”
CS DOE is a 14-year-old African American student at Verdugo High School. He is a Ninth Grader. There are very few Black Students at Verdugo High School. Almost from the first day of class (August 2024) CS DOE was targeted by Latino students who called him racial slurs, physically attacked him and threatened to stab him.
The students harassed Doe in a park. Next, the Verdugo High School. kids physically attacked CS DOE in the bathroom. More than one student at a time engaged in punching, striking, tackling and otherwise physically abusing CS DOE. While beating CS DOE, the students are clearly heard on video using the N word showing the racial component of the attack. The students threatened to stab CS DOE next time. The attack was caught on school security cameras. Thus, there was notice of the violence and hence a requirement for the school and the Los Angeles Unified School District to take corrective action, but none was taken by the school creating a climate of fear, worry and emotional distress for DOE.
Defendants failed to discipline the students who attacked CS DOE. Instead, Doe was suspended for three days, ostensibly for his own protection. Yet, isn’t that backwards logic? The attackers are supposed to be disciplined so that their anti-social behavior can be corrected. No action was taken against the student attackers who also tagged the home that CS DOE lived in with monikers and racial slurs such as the N word.
Because the attackers suffered no consequences, they attacked CS DOE another time also on Verdugo High School grounds, with security cameras (based on information and belief) capturing the attack. At least two school security personnel were present, and failed to intervene, or even call the police. CS DOE was forced to defend himself. He feared that the attacking students were going to carry out their threat of killing CS DOE with a knife and placed Doe in imminent fear of death or serious injury, CS DOE had no alternative but to defend himself. Thereafter, four more of the attackers’ friends chased after Doe. At least on of those attackers had a large knife. Two High School students were stabbed while on campus during the December 2024 attack of Doe.
With the school refusing to take corrective action, the students and their “colleagues” are now congregating where the plaintiffs live (and hence why initials are used to identify the plaintiffs.)
“My son is a good smart kid,” the boy’s mother told CBS News who is identified in the claim only as “A.O.” for her protection.
“My son was in a situation where he could’ve been killed. I still feel like he can be killed because he can’t come back over here because of everything that’s been going on.”
Gage said this incident is just one of four cases he is currently representing regarding racism against Black students in California schools.
“In my mind, the key to success is education and we want to unlock the shackles of racism so African Americans can enjoy the American Dream,” said Gage in a phone interview with Atlanta Black Star. “But what we’re seeing in California is most of the students being deprived of an education with threats and racism are Black.”
