By JOSEPH KELLARD
Isha Williams, 15, was heading to gym class when she stopped by her locker and found the note inside. A duplicate of that same typed note was found in the gym locker of another black girl.
While Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown said the notes ³mentioned threats of violence and the fact that they were black,² Sergeant Ronald Nesbitt of the Fourth Precinct revealed that the notes contained threats of murder and several racial slurs.
³It was the most horrible, horrible note,² Brown said.
The district called the police immediately about the notes, and school authorities interviewed the girls, who received counseling at the high school, Brown said.
³We look first at any prior incidents [at the school], and we interview the girls to see if they have any information relative to any discord or disagreements with any of the students,² Nesbitt said about what police look for in this and similar bias incidents.
Brown said that if a student did write and put these notes in the lockers and was caught, the penalty could be suspension or expulsion, depending on the process the school and police will take.
³It¹s ironic that it happened in Oceanside High School,² Brown said, ³because we do so much in the area of trying to promote diversity.² The superintendent noted that the day after the incident, two filmmakers who completed a movie on segregation and the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education case had visited OHS to give a presentation.
³This note came up at their presentation,² Brown said, ³and it was being discussed by both black and white students in the auditorium, as part of this conversation, and I thought it was very positive.²
