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The Menlo-Atherton High School community is expressing shock and calling for accountability after Atherton Police Department officers were filmed pinning down and arresting a student at a bus stop across from the Atherton campus on Friday afternoon, April 28. Atherton police told The Almanac the encounter is under administrative review.
Videos, including one shared by the Instagram account @thahoodnews has gotten thousands of views and show two students being handcuffed, and one being held down by officers, at Middlefield Road and Oak Grove Avenue around 3:30 p.m. on Friday. Commenters question the actions of police and express outrage over their handling of the encounter.
Student newspaper the M-A Chronicle, interviewed witnesses, including the sibling of the student who was pinned to the ground. The sibling told the Chronicle that their brother was injured during the incident.
"They tried to put (him) in cuffs, but he felt like he wasn't in the wrong and told the police not to touch him," junior Mahki Tippins, who witnessed the incident, told the M-A Chronicle. "Then, next thing you know, they have him on the ground, and more and more police officers start showing up. … I started recording for our safety. Then, (the second student) was detained because he didn't move when he was told."
In one video, you can hear the student who is pinned to the ground yelling: "Get off me! Get off me! My hernia, my stomach." A student can be heard in the background saying: "Hold on. He had surgery."
Atherton Police Cmdr. Dan Larsen said police are conducting an administrative review of the incident. He said police were dispatched to the high school after a student was reported to have pushed a school administrator against a wall and yelled homophobic slurs at him.
"Rather than cooperate, the subject walked away from police and resisted," Larsen said in an email. "The officers on scene grabbed the subject's shirt to prevent his escape and the subject continued to pull away and fell to the ground. Once on the ground, the officers placed him into handcuffs. Charges are being filed against the subject for battery on a school official and a hate crime. What was captured on video is the tail end of the incident."
In an email sent to students on Sunday, April 30, M-A Principal Karl Losekoot said: "What I can share is that our site administrators did call for police department support due to an interaction with a student that escalated to the level that our site team felt concerned for their safety, as there was physical contact made against one of our site leaders along with several verbal threats made towards that staff member."
Losekoot said that the rumor that site administrators contacted police because a student was in possession of a water gun is false.
"On Friday, countless water guns were confiscated from students, and not one of those school site interactions resulted in a call for police assistance from our site administrators," Losekoot said. "As educators, trained in the vocation of supporting students, the idea of calling for police department support is something that we absolutely do not take lightly. It is always the final option when all attempts to de-escalate a situation are not producing the desired result, and there is a clear threat to the safety of our students and/or staff."
The M-A Chronicle reported that a group of students planned a protest during lunch on Monday, May 1. Menlo-Atherton's Black Student Union announced a demonstration on campus is set for at 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 3. "Join the Black Student Union in peacefully protesting police brutality and use of excessive force," said a post on the group's Instagram account.
See videos of the incident below. The M-A Chronicle credits Mahki Tippins, Linda Gabele, Louise Gabele, one anonymous student, and the sibling of the student pinned down for the videos:
