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Apparently, in Putnam County, New York, it is not illegal for white people to make public terroristic threats to hang and/or fatally shoot Black people, and, in this case, Black children.

According to lohud.com, students and parents are dissatisfied with the responses of both school district administrators and local law enforcement to TikTok videos posted by three Carmel High School students who threatened deadly violence against Black students at the school.

One of the two videos depicted an actual shooting that happened at a Carmel middle school. In that video, the words “I’ll hang you like the KKK,” can be heard as part of an overdubbed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic rant played over a clip of the middle school’s principal speaking. In the second video, a student literally says, “I am going to bring my machine gun to school.”

From Iohud:

Over two weeks after the Carmel school district released a statement about the videos, parents met with school officials and law enforcement Wednesday night to discuss their concerns over the safety of their kids and what they said was vague communication with the school community about the situation.

Parents, particularly of students of color, said the district’s initial statement downplayed the seriousness of the videos. Some said they would have thought twice about sending their kids to school if they had known about the threats made in the videos. They also wondered if the videos could be a precursor to a school shooting.

“The fact that we weren’t warned that our kids were in any kind of threat or danger in the moment is not OK,” said Pierre Claude, a parent of a Carmel middle-schooler.

The video Claude saw showed George Fischer Middle School Principal John Piscitella talking, with a different male voice overdubbed. The voice went on a 37-second rant about hating Black kids − calling them monkeys, saying they should be sent back to Africa and using the n-word throughout.

The video Claude saw showed George Fischer Middle School Principal John Piscitella talking, with a different male voice overdubbed. The voice went on a 37-second rant about hating Black kids − calling them monkeys, saying they should be sent back to Africa and using the n-word throughout.

District officials did say they were aware of the videos and that the students responsible would be disciplined according to the district’s code of conduct—whatever that means. But more disturbing than the district’s response—which likely lacked the sense of urgency one would expect considering there have been more than 60 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, with many of them taking place at schools—is the fact that the “Putnam County Sheriff’s Office investigated and quickly determined that the students’ actions did not break the law,” Iohud reported.

Both Putnam County Sheriff Kevin McConville and Capt. Jim Schepperly agreed Wednesday that while the videos were “abhorrent” they didn’t rise to the level of criminal activity, which they said they determined after consulting with the Putnam County District Attorney’s office.

More from Iohud:

Hate crimes are not chargeable offenses on their own, said Matthew Galluzzo, a Manhattan-based criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Rather, another crime must be committed that is also identified as a hate crime.

Regarding the video that referenced bringing a machine gun to the middle school, “I think the hate crime element is actually easier than the criminal elements,” Galluzzo said. “The question is whether or not it’s a crime at all. I think it’s close.”

Galluzzo said a reasonable argument could be made that the video threatening to bring a machine gun to the middle school constituted making a terroristic threat.

So, basically, white people have to actually commit deadly violent acts against Black people before anything can be done about their terroristic threats against us. One would think that, especially in New York, that policy would be reevaluated post-Payton Gendron, but apparently not. It often feels like America is just set up so nothing can be done to prevent gun violence, it’s all simply handled after the bodies have dropped.

Still, Schepperly claims the students who made the videos will somehow be “punished,” despite the fact that law enforcement can’t seem to figure out whether a crime was committed.

“We see conduct that needs to be corrected, addressed and punished,” he said. “They’re not getting a pass.”

I mean, I guess.

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