A “kill list” that surfaced last fall at Monta Vista High School specifically targeted black students, the Mercury News reports. The list was created by anywhere between six and 10 non-black students, and was posted on Instagram and Snapchat.
Now, black community leaders in the South Bay area of California are calling out the school’s administration for lack of action, and one parent has filed a lawsuit against the Fremont Union High School District.
“You’re talking about killing people in school. Killing people—you understand,” said Walter Wilson, from the African-American Community Service Agency, according to KGO, the local ABC affiliate.
The family’s attorney, Richard Richardson, says administrators did not disclose the list to police or to black students when it first surfaced in September. The district contends this claim. Richardson said the school did not discipline the students behind the list.
“The students themselves had no idea that their lives were being threatened,” Wilson said during a press conference. “The parents had no idea they were sending their kids to school in what they thought was a safe environment, which clearly it was not or may not have been.”
The list reportedly included the students’ intentions to “shoot and kill all black students at the high school.”
The girl whom Richardson represents left her school in the wake of the threats. There are now only five black students at the school—about 0.2 percent of the student body.
The Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office recently completed an investigation and handed over its findings to the District Attorney’s office “for criminal prosecution.”
