Officials won’t charge three seventh-grade boys involved in a scuffle that started with racial taunts at Creekside Middle school in Monument.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office dropped charges of harassment and assault after parents agreed to attend a mediation program.
“The mediation was held last Thursday,” said Alison Clay, mother of Kenyan Clay, 12, a mixed-race student who was harassed by boys who donned a black hood torn from a hooded sweatshirt, chanted “KKK” and used a racial slur.
“It was cordial, and apologies were made. I think it was better than all the kids being charged in juvenile court. But the larger issue still remains, and that is the inability of the community to deal with racism,” Clay said.
The DA was right to offer mediation rather than prosecute the students, said Frank Lytle, first vice president of the Colorado Springs branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But schools should include more about African history in their curriculum to foster a greater understanding of cultures, he added.
Two 12-year-old boys and one 14-year-old taunted Kenyan Clay, donning a black hood torn from a sweatshirt, according to a police report of the incident last month. Clay jumped on one of his tormenters and got him in a headlock.
The investigation determined that one of the four boys involved hadn’t committed any offense.
Police charged Clay with assault and the two other boys with harassment for using a racial slur and advancing on Clay.
The summons were written to be handled by the wrong court, said Lin Billings a spokeswoman for the DA’s office. The DA’s office would have had to send the case through juvenile court to charge them properly.
Rather than make the change, “we contacted each family and asked if they would be interested in mediation. Each family agreed, and as a result of the successful mediation, there were no formal criminal charges,” she said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
