One family might take legal action against a Denver-area school district after discovering a group chat filled with dozens of middle schoolers sending each other racial slurs, hate speech, and discriminatory content that drove a 14-year-old boy from the school and his family from the town entirely.
The Denver Post covered the story about Jeramiah Ganzy, a former Castle Rock Middle School student. He reported via email to the Douglas County School District in March that he had been added to a group chat of about 80 students who exchanged messages threatening to shoot Black people and even calling for another Holocaust to rid the world of Black people.
Jeramiah told news outlets that he’d been the target of discriminatory treatment at the school from students and even a staff member who questioned him about where he got a water bottle in his possession and asked how he could afford it.
“There had been a lot of bullying of people calling me a monkey and a cotton picker,” Jeramiah told The Post. “I wanted something to happen. I sent the email in anger and frustration, hoping to get a response — and I didn’t.”
After weeks of waiting, Jeramiah never received a response from the school district, so he told his mother, Lacey Ganzy, about the group chat, and she took the issue straight to the middle school and the school district in April.
“It was disgusting,” Lacey Ganzy said. “These were 12- and 13-year-old children.”
Castle Rock administrators responded to the mother’s complaints by suspending a student for five days who advocated for a second Holocaust. However, a second student, who threatened to shoot Black people, had not been suspended, according to Castle Rock News Press.
Once students discovered Jeramiah told school officials, his mother said they threatened to lynch him.
“He can never go back to these schools,” she said. “They’re talking about lynching my son. I am not sending him back there….
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