NEW ROCHELLE, NY — In attempting to sort out the many conflicting accounts of the events over the past 10 days that led up to the walkout-cum-riot that occurred Monday at New Rochelle High School, our understanding continues to expand and evolve over time as new information reaches us.
In the course of our reporting we were shocked to learn New Rochelle High School Principal Dr. Dagberto Artiles has blasted past high school and district administrators for covering up sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment, and sexual blackmailing.
But first, we start with how it all begin with an unsubstantiated online allegation using a platform that may surprise many readers.
“Google Sheet Confessions has been a “thing” over the years. A person creates a public spreadsheet online and invites people to anonymously “confess” embarrassing thoughts and actions. Some of it is silly, some of it quite dark. Below is an example of a video gamer confessions sheet posted in 2013.
There is software available to auto-post “confessions” to Instagram, TikTok or other social media platforms.
A British writer set up a “Google confession form” in 2019, and received over 6,000 submissions ranging from disgusting to tawdry to disturbing.
Recent events in New Rochelle began when a person, presumably but not necessarily a student, published a Google Sheet form and invited students to post anonymous “confessions” on the spreadsheet. On March 16, we were sent a link to an Instagram profile @newroconfessionspage but the Google Sheet and Instagram profile were shut down. Several fake “replica” versions have since been posted such as the one below.
On Tuesday, March 15, a female New Rochelle High School student posted a “confession” that she had been sexually assaulted four years earlier while she was a student at Isaac E. Young Middle School. She did not initially identify herself or her alleged attacker but was pressured to do so by others and eventually named a male New Rochelle High School student as her attacker.
Some students, accepting the allegations at face value, hatched a plan to jump the male student off school grounds the next day.
Several students could not wait.
Based on the now-infamous stomping video there may have up to five or more students involved in the attack on Wednesday March 16: as one student kicks, punches and stomps the victim of the attack, one student is recording the attack, two students stand by to screen the attack and one student sits next to the victim as he is pummeled without moving or even appearing surprised by the attack. It has the appearance of a conspiracy.
On March 17, the victim of the stomping attack filed a complaint with the New Rochelle Police. He told detectives he was not injured, did not know his attacker or why he was attacked.
The female student who made the allegation on nrhs.confessions that she was sexually assaulted did not file a complaint with New Rochelle Police four years ago. After she posted to nrhs.confessions she met with New Rochelle High School Principal Dr. Dagberto Artiles. He advised her to file a complaint with the New Rochelle Police. In the days since posting her allegation on nrhs.confessions and meeting with Dr. Artiles, police say they have received no such complaint.
School officials have said the alleged sexual assault occurred four years ago at an off-campus location.
As can happen in a school setting, one unsubstantiated allegation of one sexual assault was repeated over and over and soon expanded as students, commenting on social media, including the Talk of the Sound Instagram profile, whipped up a frenzy of allegations that grew to epic proportions — not one sexual assault of one girl four years ago but dozens of assaults, of boys and girls and men and women, a serial rapist wreaking havoc for six years with the full knowledge of the school district and police who ignored years of complaints and did nothing.
A lynch mob mentality took hold celebrating the attacker seen in the viral video, demanding vengeance coupled with calls for more violence.
Anyone who dared question the increasingly unhinged narrative, including this reporter, were accused of defending a rapist and demonstrating a lack of concern or empathy for sexual assault victims. Any sense of due process or the rights of the accused was either abandoned or never existed at all in the minds of many students. It soon became clear that few, if any, students in the New Rochelle school system have been taught basic civics, the role of law enforcement (not schools) to investigate criminal allegations or the meaning of the protections enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Dr. Artiles has since said in a series of online “town halls” that he met with some students to reason with them as to what a school official can and cannot due with a criminal complaint and the need to report crimes to the police.
When the students declared last week they intended to hold a walkout to protest the school district’s history of suppressing student complaints of sexual assault, Dr. Artiles sent mixed messages: he would not sanction the event but he would allow the event to occur on school grounds during class time; he would allow students to skip class but would take attendance after the walkout and issue 3 days suspensions to any students who did not return to class; he would not help organize the event but he called on teachers and staff to join him outside the building to assist security staff in managing the crowd, he spoke to students about due process rights but allowed the walkout to end with a rally on the site of the viral video assault, in effect, validating the unsubstantiated allegations against the male student and endorsing the use of violence.
The walkout was described as a response to a history of school administrators “silencing of victims of sexual assault”.
The walkout quickly devolved into a riot.
The Superintendent later estimated 150 students walked into a fenced-off sports field already filled with up to 1,000 other students and within minutes fights were breaking out left and right so that security staff was overwhelmed.
By the time it was over, 10 students were suspended for 5 days each, two students were injured, one student was arrested for assault and one more was being sought by police for assault, plus a robbery.
According to Dr. Artiles, the aggregate 50 suspension days handed out for conduct during the 30 minute period of the walkout is more than three times the cumulative number of suspension days meted out by the school for the entire school year up to that point.
From a public relations standpoint, the day was a disaster. WCBS-TV, WABC-TV and News12 all had cameras crews recording the event and a dozen media outlets reported on the protest that quickly turned into a melee.
“It was not a good look for the students,” said Dr. Artiles.
Raymond, in what has become a pattern, struggled to get his facts straight, telling WCBS-TV in the early afternoon there was a sexual assault one year ago but issuing a written statement later that evening saying the sexual assault was four years ago.
Raymond refuted the claims of the students who protested Monday, saying he takes these matters seriously.
“We do thorough investigations, we refer incidents to law enforcement, we get to the bottom of issues.”
His high school principal does not agree.
In a startling statement after the walk-out riot, New Rochelle High School Principal Dr. Dagberto Artiles says that for years New Rochelle High School and the City School District of New Rochelle swept sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment and sexual blackmailing under the rug.
The coverups are the both student perception and reality, he said. School officials failed to act on reports of sexual violence.
“We have a problem,” said Dr. Artiles, “a problem that has clearly been taking place.”
Dr. Artiles has recently taken to telling the story of a student who told him that she is afraid to walk through a particular hallway in the high school.
“My goal is not to go into that area of the school, because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” Artiles quoted her saying.
New Rochelle Schools Superintendent Jonathan P. Raymond called the walkout-riot “extremely disappointing” with “multiple altercations” and claimed no injuries were reported.
Dr. Artiles likewise said no one was injured.
He also claimed no one was arrested for what transpired on Monday.
The New Rochelle Police reported three police incidents — two assaults and one robbery — what New Rochelle Police Captain J. Collins Coyne, Commander of the Criminal Investigation Division, called “crimes of opportunity” during the walkout-riot.
According to Coyne, there was a fight during the walkout involving juveniles where a cell phone was taken. No arrests have been made yet, the robbery case is still open.
There was a fight at the school where a juvenile claimed injury. No arrests have been made yet, the assault case is still open.
There was a fight where one juvenile threw rubbing alcohol on another juvenile student who was hit in the eye with it. One arrest on an assault charge was made.
Rubbing alcohol which contains Isopropyl alcohol can cause chemical burns and can be extremely harmful for the eyes, potentially causing Cornea damage, blepharitis (inflammation of the eyelids), irritation in the eyeball, temporary blindness, or permanent blindness.
Raymond claimed 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.”
Coyne said, “there was no real ‘perimeter’ set up, but police were called to the scene due to someone calling in a fight.”
Dr. Artiles has begun to pick up a theme of our reporting, that many New Rochelle students have no concept of civics, how the rule of law works, or due process. He sees a clear message that students do not understand what the rights are for the victims as well as the accused.
“They cannot define between those two,” he said.
Dr. Artiles sees a need to educate students on the ability of the school to investigate a matter that has criminal implications, and on responsible civil disobedience. He has proposed integrating civics across the board no matter the subject.
“I have learned that our students are lacking a tremendous amount of knowledge in those areas,” said Artiles. “They do not comprehend why the school and the administration is not telling them what was done, whether there was any suspension issue, whether the police were involved and what kind of police reporting was done and where the police are in the situation now with the police investigation,”
Dr. Artiles said the walkout was highly disorganized which led to what transpired on Monday. He said the students involved feel a tremendous amount of shame because they embarrassed the school and embarrassed the faculty. The next step is for the students to send out a statement on the purpose of their group.
RELATED:
New Rochelle High School Student Walkout Turns into Free-for-All, Criminal Charges Filed
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Student Brutally Stomps and Punches Defenseless Student at New Rochelle High School
OTHER MEDIA
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