Inside the handling of threatening TikTok videos in Carmel: Why no charges, few details?

"I am afraid beyond words," Shonee Thompson said.

Thompson, a newcomer to the Carmel school district, pointed to her son, a middle-schooler, sitting quietly outside a crowd of adults in the high school library. She asked school officials and police to remember that the crisis facing her community — that violent threats had been made against Black students — is about her son and kids like him.

"But I'm not leaving this district," she said to applause. "This district needs to change."

Thompson spoke last week at a second community forum about the threats — made in TikTok videos by three Carmel High School students — and how the school district and law enforcement have reacted to them. The forum, raw, emotional and at times confrontational, showed how fears about violence in an age of school shootings can rub up against confidential investigations and actions taken, or not taken, by law enforcement and school leaders.

Parents, especially parents of students of color, want to know whether the students who created the videos have been suspended, will be suspended and whether they present an ongoing threat.

"How do I know my son is not walking past this student every single day?" parent Shemika Franklin said.

Answers have been in short supply. The Putnam County Sheriff's Office declined to bring criminal charges against the students, leaving it to the Carmel school district to handle the matter. School district officials say they can't discuss the students who created the videos because of privacy requirements.

Before social media, most disciplinary matters in schools never became public. But threats made over social media, quickly shared, now can have school districts facing public interrogations they're ill-equipped to handle.

The students in question are all 14 years old, Putnam District Attorney Robert Tendy told The Journal News/lohud.

At Monday's second forum, attended by about 80 people, district officials and officers from the Sheriff's Department faced question after question about their handling of the matter. While insisting they understood parents' fears and wished they could put them at ease, they said they could not release the details parents crave.

After parent Abigail Santana pressed Captain John Alfano of the Sheriff's Department on several matters — "I have a right to know!" she said — Alfano headed for the exit, drawing jeers and sarcastic applause.

'You don't want Columbine'

It's become all too common after school shootings across the country for police and the media to look for warnings that violence had been brewing.

How could these videos not be such a warning, parents asked at the forum. "You don't want Columbine," said Evette Muniz, a parent and nurse.

The videos, which were taken down from TikTok, have been widely shared in the community, stunning and frightening those who have seen them. "I cried," school board President Debra Heitman-Cayea said.

Two videos had a male voice, overdubbed over clips of middle school Principal John Piscitella appearing to speak, ranting about Black students, promising to bring a machine gun to school to shoot them, and warning "I'll hang you like the KKK." Other videos, in a video game format, showed students being shot in the middle school, at times by police or school administrators.

Parents have four main concerns, as expressed at the two forums, on social media and in interviews:

• They're angry that initial communications from the school district did not say the videos included threats of violence, with some insisting they would have kept their children home had they known.

• They want police to explain why the students were not arrested, considering that others who have threatened violence on social media across New York have been charged with making terroristic threats, including a Brewster student in 2019.

• They want to know how the students are being dealt with and the likelihood that they present a threat.

• They want to know what the district will do to address racism in a community where some have questioned efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion.

"These offenders are children — but they are deeply disturbed," Muniz said. "And they need special parameters, because it’s not normal to, even in jest, say what they said, to do what they did. How they planned it. This was premeditated to shock the school district."

At the conclusion of Monday's forum, Carmel Superintendent Mary-Margaret Zehr said it was "not easy to listen to" the many criticisms of the district. She said the district had been "remiss" in ways she did not specify.

"We have not done a good job," she said, promising numerous changes, including better communication.

Sheriff's Department: Not enough evidence to charge

According to accounts from district officials, the district began investigating the videos on Feb. 13, a day after finding out about the first of the videos. The district contacted law enforcement to assess any threat and determine necessary actions. The Sheriff's Department concluded there was no immediate threat and that schools could stay open, Zehr wrote in a post-forums email to the community Wednesday.

The students involved were already facing disciplinary action, her email said, without specifying why.

The Sheriff's Department investigated the students, including their access to guns, officers said at Monday's forum. They determined they did not have grounds to make an arrest, Captain James Schepperly told the largely dissatisfied crowd. "If we did, there would have been an arrest," he said.

Schepperly told The Journal News/lohud that the Sheriff's Department could not meet the requirements to charge someone with making a terroristic threat.

"I've had cases where I believed a person committed murder, but I couldn't make an arrest because we didn't have evidence," he said. "It doesn't matter what I feel. It's what I can articulate, and we don't have it. We reviewed it with the DA's office, and they said, 'You're right. You don't have it.'"

Putnam County District Attorney Robert Tendy told The Journal News/lohud he watched the videos over and over — "they are reprehensible and vile" — reviewed the penal law and determined "I don't have a crime here to charge."

"I understand why parents are upset, I wouldn't expect them to be anything but, but parents being upset is not a reason to arrest these kids," he said.

Tendy said he would need evidence that an "intentional threat was directed at a student or group of students." Because the videos tried to show a school administrator or law enforcement officer appearing to make threats, he said, it could be interpreted that the students were not seeking to make threats themselves. "They are putting the words in the mouths of someone else," he said.

If he had found evidence to charge the students, the case would have been referred to Family Court because the students are 14, Tendy said.

At Monday's forum, parent Gina Torres, a prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney's Office from 2006 to 2017, expressed the incredulity of many parents that the Sheriff's Department and DA's Office found the videos to be insufficient evidence when they threated to kill Black students and depicted a school shooting in the middle school.

"That the DA wouldn't prosecute this is reprehensible," she said.

Told by Sergeant Matthew Monroe of the Sheriff's Department that undisclosed mitigating factors prevented criminal charges, Torres said, "I want to know what those mitigating factors are ... that led your department to believe this was a case where an arrest was not appropriate."

Monroe said he was frustrated that he could not reveal information that would put people at ease. He said the Sheriff's Department, after talks with the DA's Office and school district, determined the school district should handle the matter.

"School is a better place to learn than a courtroom," he said, causing parents to grumble and one to storm off.

Why is disciplinary action a private matter?

Without criminal charges, the students became a disciplinary matter for the school district.

But district officials won't say whether the students have been suspended, whether they are in school or how they are being counseled or watched.

Zehr's Wednesday email explained: "Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the district is unable to share any information about students involved in incidents or any disciplinary action that may have been taken."

Parent Tara Biundo echoed the concerns of many about the students behind the videos: "Their privacy is being protected, but who is protecting the children who are trying to go to school to learn?" she said at the second forum.

The school district's code of conduct allows for a short-term student suspension of five days or less. To issue a long-term suspension, a student and the student's parents must be offered a hearing. Permanent suspension is also listed as an option for "extraordinary circumstances."

At Monday's forum, Lauren Santabarbara, the district’s assistant superintendent for instruction, when pressed for information on whether the students were suspended, said she could not discuss what happened.

But she did offer this: "You can suspend these children for 25 years; the research tells us it won’t work."

Many in public education have turned against out-of-school suspensions in recent years, saying they are more likely to exacerbate students' behavior than in-school counseling and programs. In an email, Santabarbara explained that by working with students, "we have a better chance of changing future behavior, and a better understanding of where past behaviors came from."

Parents have asked who will have an eye on the students. At the first forum, Zehr, responding to a question, said that most district staff did not know which students were behind the videos. School security officers and principals had information, she said.

What's next? A new commitment to DEI

How does Carmel move forward?

Since 2021, the state Board of Regents has been pushing school districts to create policies and practices to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and stamp out various forms of discrimination.

The Carmel school board adopted a DEI policy in 2021, but received vehement criticism by some at board meetings. Many districts have heard similar rebukes that DEI work is really anti-white "critical race theory."

Zehr and the school board are now pledging to re-energize a districtwide DEI committee and to hire an outside agency to help guide the district.

At Monday's forum, Heitman-Cayea, the school board president, said the difficult conversation was "long, long, long overdue" and that "some of the pain here, unfortunately, was necessary to happen" so the district could act.

Asked to elaborate, she said many people "don't know how to talk" about racism.

Lisa Jackson, president of the Carmel Teachers' Association, told The Journal News/lohud that the district must take additional steps to combat racism.

"The behaviors we are seeing, these incidents, are beyond abhorrent," she said. "We want students and staff to work in a safe, welcoming environment. We strive to make that happen every day on our own. As a union, this is near and dear to our hearts. These are our kids."

Jackson said teachers have been attacked by some in the community for pursuing equity. Further opposition, she said, would be proof that the work is needed.

"If people push back, it's evidence we need to do more," she said. "DEI is about accepting people for who they are. How can educators not stand by that?"

Gary Stern is a veteran editor/writer covering K-12 education in the Hudson Valley. Reach him at gstern@lohud.com. Twitter: @garysternNY.

Click here for his latest.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: TikTok videos threatened Black kids Carmel NY but no criminal charges