Berkeley High School students in California walked out of classes to protest a racist message posted on a library computer at the school by one of their own classmates.
Berkeley school officials estimated that about 2,000 of the 3,000 students at the high school left the campus in protest and marched through downtown to the University of California, Berkeley, the
San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The message referred to the Ku Klux Klan, used racist language toward African-Americans and mentioned a public lynching. Berkeley school district spokesman Mark Coplan said the student, whose name was not release, confessed to creating the post to school officials.
"We really understand the students' pain, their anguish and their fear and are doing everything we can to work with Berkeley police and other agencies to figure out what happened," Coplan told the Chronicle. "Our students are hurting tremendously. They're weeping. They're crying."
The
San Jose Mercury News said the 15-years-old student planted the KKK-related message on a computer in the high school library. Berkeley Police Officer Byron White said he was happy that the mystery was cleared up in a short time.
"I think it's terrific to be able to find out, and rare to solve something like this on the same day," White said to the Mercury News. White added that the suspect would probably be taken "to juvenile probation for review of charges. It's a juvenile suspect."
Some students complained that school officials didn't act quickly enough to the posting, saying the principal didn't send an email out about the incident until 11 hours after the offending note was found, said the Chronicle.
"That's what made us even more mad," said student Lashawda McCullough. "That was the first question we asked him. Why the delay? If our lives are in jeopardy, we should be aware of that as soon as it happens."
The Chronicle said the school's Black Student Union responded to the offending note by calling it an act of terrorism and distributing it to other students.
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