Calls for accountability after racist slur at Riverhead football game

The great-grandfather of four Black children who were called a racial slur at a Riverhead football game earlier this month is demanding accountability for the pair of Riverhead students responsible.

The four children, cousins between the ages of 5 and 7, were called the slur by a high school student and a middle school student while at the Sept. 9 game, Robert Brown, their great-grandfather, told the school board at a meeting the following Tuesday. Mr. Brown added that one of the children was pushed to the ground during the incident.

“I can’t imagine how this could be tolerated,” he said.

Mr. Brown grew up in Riverhead. He is a Riverside resident, regularly attends school board meetings and helps organize programs celebrating Black heritage within the district.

A Riverhead Middle School student, a Riverhead High School student, a third out-of-district individual and the parents of the young children were involved in the incident, according to a letter sent the following Monday by Superintendent Augustine Tornatore.

According to Mr. Brown, the students who hurled the slur were banned from future school football games.

“That’s like a slap on the wrist — not even — just a tap on the wrist,” he added. 

The incident began on the playground at the nearby Pulaski Street Intermediate School with an altercation involving the two Riverhead students, the non-Riverhead individual and the children, who were playing there. The district reviewed video footage in which they saw words being exchanged. The students then moved to the adjacent stands at the football field, followed by the children’s parents. 

Numerous individuals witnessed the ongoing interaction in the stands and reported that racial slurs were uttered, and defamatory gestures were also made toward the adults. Riverhead Town police, who were already stationed at the game, became involved and filed a report.

The district is conducting an investigation into the altercation, which includes review of video footage from the playground, review of a police report filed on the incident, interviews with the two Riverhead students by school administrators and interviews with witnesses. 

In his letter to district families, Mr. Tornatore said the district would be meeting with members of the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association and would ask for input from the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force about additional programming that might be incorporated into the school’s curriculum.

“We are of course disturbed by this incident and the alleged use of racial slurs and other unacceptable behavior that may have been exhibited during this incident,” Mr. Tornatore wrote. “As noted by Board of Education president Colin Palmer at the board’s September 12 meeting, the district will be looking to enhance its programming related to racial relations.”

In an interview Monday afternoon, Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force chairperson Michael McLaughlin said he would like to open a dialogue to ensure situations like this don’t happen again.

“We’re hoping that we can assist with programming that can teach our children how words hurt,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “We would like to create a circle of healing for anyone that’s been discriminated against or assaulted, and we want sensitivity training for those that have made these kinds of things come about.”

In a note to families sent out Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Tornatore revealed the results of the district’s investigation and said that the “non-district teenager was the main instigator of the interactions in question.

“This in no way condones or excuses any of the behaviors that may have been exhibited by our two students, but it clarifies one aspect of the alleged interactions that occurred that day,” he wrote.

To close, Mr. Tornatore added that aside from working with the town Anti-Bias Task Force and other community groups and stakeholders, they will be working with the Community Relations Service division of the U.S. Department of Justice, whose mission and programming is to assist schools in “creating a more welcoming and supportive environment for all.”

The task force had a meeting Monday night that was attended by Tiffany Beck and Ryan Scott, the mothers of the young children involved, as well as town Police Chief David Hegermiller, Town Council member Ken Rothwell and Dr. Emily Sanz, the district’s director of social-emotional learning, English as a new language, special programming and community outreach.

“When an incident such as this occurs, I think we have to be willing to open up lines of communication, certainly make ourselves available to the school district itself toward how we can proceed, and things that we can do to unite to make sure that something of this nature never happens again,” Mr. Rothwell said.

Chief Hegermiller said he plans to add two full-time school resource officers to the district, one at the middle school and one at the high school. Mr. Rothwell suggested the school consider offering a class from James Banks, a Suffolk County Community College professor who has previously led implicit bias trainings for the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force.

Ms. Scott had been visiting from Bridgehampton to watch her nephew’s football game when the incident happened. She said that while the district has had communications with the perpetrators, she would like more support from the district for those who were victimized.

“If this is supposed to be a community of people who are together, why am I having to be the one to reach out to every single body in this district?” she asked.

Mr. Brown called for community members to speak out and not be bystanders when they see these types of incidents occur.

“I think it’s important for the white community to let it be known how you feel in these situations because I don’t believe that most people feel the way these kids feel. I think they are in the minority,” Mr. Brown said. “When somebody says something detrimental about a person’s race, about their religion, about their sexual orientation — speak out against it, tell them that you don’t believe in this kind of conversation and conduct.”