Parents File Complaint Over Racist Snapchat Post At Cobb School

NORTHEAST, GA -- Weeks after a social media post threatening African-Americans caused a firestorm at North Cobb High School, a Cobb County group is seeking to file a criminal complaint against the student who allegedly wrote it, Patch has learned.

In early March, a screenshot of a Snapchat message that made racist and vile threats against blacks, including the desire to "exterminate" them, began to circulate among parents of students at the Cobb school.

North Cobb High School administrators promptly addressed the issue, informing parents in an email that "All is well and we are moving forward with our school day."

But things were not so well: Students at the school expressed that they felt uncomfortable; security was heightened at the school in the wake of the message. Parents began to get increasingly vocal about the school's response to the crisis.

Read more: Cobb School Responds To Racist Post: 'We Denounce Everything About It'

Many of them expressed concern that the student had not been reprimanded harshly enough. They said that even though he had been suspended, he could pose a threat to other students when he returned. Now, the brouhaha has ratcheted up another notch.

A group made up of parents and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sat down with Cobb police investigators Wednesday morning to officially file a complaint, apparently to explore any criminal ramifications.

"We want to report a crime," Dr. H. Benjamin Williams with the SCLC told WGCL. "A crime that is of national significance. We have seen, we believe, a crime of a terroristic threat being committed."

Read more: Parents Fume Over Racist Social Media Post At North Cobb

Eddie Harris, a parent, told the TV station, "I would like to see charges pressed." He added: "The mood is a divisive setting in North Cobb right now."

Many in the community feel that the school and parents need to come together in a plan to make sure something like this never happens again.

"The principal's vague letter and the district's claim of confidentiality both miss the larger point. Students and their families deserve a forum to be heard (with more than one extra minute), a place to connect, and strategies for organizing," Jillian Carter Ford, Ph.D., an associate professor in Kennesaw State's Education Department, told Patch in an email. "There needs to be generative conversation about how to move forward from this as a community; traditional disciplinary measures of suspension are ill-fitted."

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