Three teenagers in Texas allegedly dressed in costumes resembling Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robes for Halloween and attacked a Black high school student with a taser gun.
Matt Manning, the attorney for the victim, said the incident took place in the small town of Woodsboro in Texas on 31 October.
Mr Manning, at a news conference on Wednesday, said his client was not seriously injured, adding there were five other victims of similar attacks. The identities of the victim and the perpetrators were withheld by the attorney because of their age.
“For you to dress up as a Klansman, you have a specific intent of terrorising,” Mr Manning said.
“That’s not an accident. That’s not kids being kids. That’s not boys being boys. That’s not hazing or high school hijinks. High school hijinks are egging somebody’s house, not dressing up as a Klansman and Tasing them,” he added.
The KKK is a radical American white supremacist hate group that is known for primarily terrorising Black people in the US.
The attorney, in a Facebook post earlier on Sunday, wrote that he was “infuriated” because he “learned, from multiple sources, that another, even younger victim was terrorised by these depraved menaces that same night.”
He alleged that the three young men were subsequently allowed to play at a Woodsboro Eagle football game against Falls City last Friday night. Mr Manning demanded an explanation from the Woodsboro high school administration and answers for the “abhorrent, indefensible, and inexcusable” incident.
According to the attorney, Refugio county sheriff’s deputies were called to Woodsboro after news of the teen being shocked with a “Taser or cattle-prod-like” device emerged.
Although there were no immediate arrests or criminal charges, the local police, Refugio county deputies and Texas Rangers are conducting a probe.
Following the incident, the Woodsboro school district issued a statement saying officials cannot discipline the suspects because the incident took place outside the campus. The school district officials said they were cooperating with investigators.
Recently, a student wearing a KKK costume to Pittsburg High School prior to Halloween raised concerns among the community. The student claimed he went to school wearing the costume as part of a “dare.”
Todd Whitmire, the principal of the school, sent out a message to students, staff and parents that the costume was confiscated, after which school officials met with the student and his family, adding the student would participate in the school’s restorative justice process, according to local media reports.
