California teens arrested for Snapchatting video of nooses and guns to black student

This past Easter, two 16-year-old, white students from the Central Catholic High School in Modesto, Calif., got together to record a racially-charged, threatening video and upload it to Snapchat.

“You must die, motherfucker,” one of the teens can be seen saying as he holds a noose around his neck, laughing. He goes on to call out another student at the school, 18-year-old Noah Porter, who is black. The video then abruptly cuts to a different scene with a gun being fired.

On Monday, the Modesto Bee reported, both of the boys responsible for the video, whose names have not been released to the public, were arrested under suspicion of making terrorist threats and committing a hate crime by Modesto police.

“We have identified the male juvenile in the video. We believe that the other male that was arrested was involved in production or distribution of the video,” Modesto police captain Brian Findlen told the paper. “We are still investigating where the video was taken, but we are working from the perspective that the video was produced at one of the homes that was searched.”

Speaking on behalf of the Porter family, attorney Jacq Wilson explained to the Bee that while the school has suspended both of the arrested students, the general consensus on campus is that school administrators didn’t initially take the issue seriously.

Now, Wilson, Porter, and other families connected to the school are pushing the administration to roll out a series of comprehensive training sessions geared toward dealing with racial sensitivity. Wilson is also calling for the school’s official rules about bullying and hate crimes to be updated to include cyberbullying.

“I want to thank everyone for their support and prayers, the community support, and all those parents of students who have been victims of hate crimes and bullying that have reached out to me,” said Tanya Porter, Noah’s mother.