NEW ROCHELLE, NY — An unsanctioned but permitted walkout of 150 New Rochelle High School students on Monday turned into a free-for-all. One student suffered minor injuries and filed criminal charges with New Rochelle Police.
A school official, speaking on background, said despite reports circulating at the school, no administrators were assaulted.
Between 800 and 1,000 students were outside, either on the soccer field or around the perimeter. There were dozens of altercations, all on the same fenced-in soccer field where a student was assaulted in a viral video last Wednesday.
One staff member called it a “cage match”.
One student did a good job of documenting the walkout and posted video on Instagram.
“Today’s events were extremely disappointing,” said Raymond. “There were students who were interested in legitimately expressing their voices and others who took advantage of the moment. It is unfortunate that the negative events detracted from the message the students who were protesting were trying to share.”
“During the demonstration, there were other students who took advantage of the time to engage in multiple altercations that were quickly handled by our security staff. No injuries were reported.”
The walkout was described as a response to a history of school administrators “silencing of victims of sexual assault”.
The protesting students marched around the soccer practice field, with many of them holding signs: “No means no.”
In a statement issued Monday evening, New Rochelle Schools Superintendent Jonathan P. Raymond said the protest stemmed from a social media posting last week by in which a student alleged a sexual assault four years ago at an off-campus location.
“That allegation led to a physical confrontation between two other students on our campus the day after the social media posting,” said Raymond, referring to the viral video.
“Some of these incidents were recorded by students on their phones,” said Raymond. “Those who engaged in the altercations will be subject to disciplinary action, consistent with our school code of conduct.”
“The New Rochelle Police Department was on site to assist in securing the perimeter of the school to ensure that students stayed safely on campus.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: With the caveat that there are conflicting accounts and perhaps more to come, here is what we have pieced together so far from Superintendent Raymond’s email statement, from Raymond’s interview with Tony Aiello of CBS2, various administrative sources speaking on background and student comments online.
A female New Rochelle High School student posted to a reportedly-since-deleted social media account (we have never seen the post with the allegation despite multiple requests) an unsubstantiated allegation that she was sexually assaulted by a male New Rochelle High School student four years prior (Raymond says OFF campus) while attending a different school (Isaac E. Young Middle School). After posting her allegation to social media the female New Rochelle High School student presented her allegations to New Rochelle High School administrators who advised her to contact New Rochelle Police. The New Rochelle Police says no such complaint was received so no investigation was opened.
Somewhere along this timeline, a male New Rochelle High School student, in the belief that the allegation was true, attacked the accused male New Rochelle High School student alleged by the female New Rochelle High School student to have sexually assaulted her. A video of the attack was posted to an Instagram account. That video was forwarded to us and we published a story about the attack across all platforms. At some point the attacker is suspended.
Dozens of students post comments to our Instagram account to the effect that the victim is “guilty” of a cascading number of crimes, deserved to be attacked and anyone who questions the basis for that unsubstantiated narrative is “defending a rapist”. Due process does not exist in IG comments. The allegations mushroom rapidly and amount to increasingly hysterical “proven” claims of a serial rapist operating in the New Rochelle schools for 6 years that school officials and police know about but will do nothing about. There is no evidence and no details of any of these claims.
We notified school and police officials of the claims on our Instagram account. We sent them the links. Both say they are investigating the claims. So far, nothing has come from those investigations.
Here is the relevant section of the New Rochelle Code of Conduct.
High School Level Grades 9-12
Inappropriate Behaviors & Levels of Interventions/ConsequencesAdditional possible contact beyond Parents
Sexual Activity (Inappropriate)
Police Dept.
Reports to Law Enforcement
The building principal or his/her designee must notify the appropriate local law enforcement agency of those code of conduct violations that constitute a crime and substantially affect the order or security of a school as soon as practical, but in no event later than the close of business the day the principal or his/her designee learns of the violation. The notification may be made by telephone, followed by a letter mailed within 24 hours after the time that the telephone call is made. The notification must identify the student and explain the conduct that violated the code of conduct, which constituted a crime.
Superintendent Raymond made some odd statements yesterday. He said the New Rochelle Police Department was “on site to assist in securing the perimeter of the school to ensure that students stayed safely on campus.” This is hard to believe considering that not only is this not typically (ever?) a role police play — they are not truant officers, they cannot detain or arrest students for leaving campus, these would be armed officers acting as “prison guards”, and the district has firmly rejected having CSOs on campus in the past.
We are told two police officers, in their patrol cars, were parked on the other side of the building on Clove Road, available to respond to a crime, if called (and not called) but not “securing the perimeter”.
Raymond told Tony Aiello of WCBS2 News that the alleged sexual assault happened off campus more than a year ago (in his email last night Raymond said four years ago). Raymond said he takes “this seriously….we do thorough investigations, we refer incidents to law enforcement, we get to the bottom of issues.”
As we have reported for the past 14 years, whatever the de jure policy is in the Code of Conduct and School Safety Plan the de facto policy and whatever Superintendent Raymond told Tony Aiello, is that all decisions to call police for an incident in a school, in violation of the written School Safety plan are routed to the school principal who may or may not call the police. Mostly, principals are discouraged from creating a public paper trail and so do not often call police. Staff all know to never call the police.
Readers will recall, for example, no one at New Rochelle High School called 911 (the written policy) when Bryan Stamps stabbed and nearly killed Ethan Jordan in 2018.
Setting aside how a school makes a determination a crime occurred (as opposed to may have occurred, which is something done between police and prosecutors not a school administrator).
Setting aside that the alleged incident was off-campus and involved two students both minors at the time, possibly younger than 12, at a different school.
Setting aside that there is no Code of Conduct violation while the students are enrolled at New Rochelle High School.
Apart from counseling, how does the high school play a role in an unreported alleged crime (then or now) from four years ago that Superintendent Raymond says took place off-campus?
We are just not getting that last part but welcome suggestions.
RELATED:
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