A 15-year-old in Louisiana was charged with a hate crime after being caught on video whipping a black student.
The student was arrested Tuesday on charges of battery and hate crimes, according to officials. The March 9 video, recorded at Vandebilt Catholic High School in Houma, Louisiana, featured a white student throwing a handful of cotton balls at a black student before slapping the student several times with a belt. The black student then pushes the student back.
Officials declined to identify the two students due to them being minors. However, they did confirm that the event was recorded at Vandebilt during school hours. The archdiocese overseeing the school issued a statement on March 10, stating that Wednesday’s “actions by a few are not consistent with the values and mission of our school.”
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“I’m very pleased that the school took a front stand on this,” Sheriff Tim Soignet told the Courier and Daily Comet. Soignet confirmed that the school and local law enforcement worked together to confirm the video’s contents and identify the student in question.
“You know, we can’t sweep this under the rug. We can’t push this off and make this more skeletons in the closet,” PJ Allridge, a teacher at Vandebilt who was familiar with the students in question, told CBS 4 WWL.
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Vandebilt Catholic High School is considered a majority white school, and 91.3% of students are white, while 2.9% of students are black or African American, according to the US News & World Report.
