PORTLAND, Ore. — Ever since videos went viral online showing a Tualatin student attacking other kids in the halls of a school, seemingly unprovoked, the Tigard-Tualatin School District has been roiled by controversy. That culminated in the bomb threats last week that caused Hazelbrook Middle School to evacuate Friday and remain closed Monday.
Since then, the district says, police have arrested both the student seen in those videos and a youth responsible for one of the threats. But for some, the matter isn't over — and it has somehow fed into a much larger culture war that has little to do with the incidents that started it all.
Across the board, middle school has never been an easy time for kids. At that age, students are going through a lot of changes; both their studies and their social lives tend to get more intense. But on top of that, today's middle schoolers are dealing with the after-effects of the pandemic, rising mental health needs and the pressures that come from social media and widespread cell phone use, if not outright bullying. Some kids, too, are getting their first real glimpses at what bigotry looks like.
Violence goes viral
Because most of the people involved are minors, confirmed information on the Tualatin incidents can be hard to come by. The videos, which each showed the same student accosting different kids at school, started going viral last week. In one example, the student grabs a classmate in the hallway by her backpack, then slams her on the floor and hits her repeatedly, cursing at her and walking away. The victim is seen getting up and crying before saying, "I can't breathe."
Some users who shared the video identified it as happening at Hazelbrook Middle School in Tualatin, which the district has all but confirmed.
According to TTSD Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith, the videos were part of a social media challenge of taping fights or threats and posting them online for views. She said that the attacks weren't reported to school officials at the time — the district learned about it once the students who captured the incidents on video posted them online and word started to spread.
The district has said that it is now a criminal investigation and the student seen attacking others has been arrested.
But as the videos went viral, conservative activists claimed without confirmation that the attacker was transgender based on the student's appearance and clothes — and the student's perceived identity quickly became the center of the uproar.
The videos were amplified when they were shared by Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer who has gathered a following in right-wing spaces by railing against inclusion of trans athletes in sports. As of Thursday morning, the first video had reached more than 10.8 million views on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The district said the spreading of the videos around the country was "inspiring false information and a focus and discourse on sexual identity." It also seems to have prompted the threats against the school and administrators.
"There is no connection (to gender identity) there and this is the hate that we are dealing with now from groups across the nation and even here locally, and that has no place in our schools," said Reike-Smith.
Because everyone seen in the video are minors, the district said it would not provide more information to the public. "As minors, there are laws in place that protect their privacy," the district said.
"Students and adults contributed to the sharing of this recording that exposed minors who were directly and indirectly involved without consent," TTSD continued. "These acts have contributed to the trauma individuals and families are already experiencing."
Ammunition for the culture war
One of the people sharing the videos online is Ben Edtl. He's the parent of a child at Hazelbrook Middle School, and he's also the leader of the far-right group "Free Oregon," which has opposed COVID-19 mask and vaccine requirements and cast doubt on the integrity of the state's elections.
Unlike the Tigard-Tualatin School District, Edtl has no misgivings about circulating the Hazelbrook videos online.
"They're also videoed all every day, everywhere throughout the school," Edtl told KGW. "I think it's really disgusting that Sue Reike-Smith, the Superintendent of (TTSD) is trying to turn this around and blame parents ... this is not the parents' fault or responsibility. The parents are outraged. The parents have been outraged. And the parents are still outraged."
Edtl said he thinks the threats of violence against the school were hoaxes — he called them a "false flag" coming from "leftists." He's not concerned that the spread of the videos may have led to those threats.
"Violence is already occurring at the school on a regular basis, and no, I'm really not concerned," Edtl said. "I suspect that the bomb threat came from somebody who supports Sue Reike-Smith and that's why nothing's being done about it. I think it's meant to distract and to meant to take people's attention away from the facts of the matter. And the facts are, is that a boy decided he was going to put on girls clothes, so he could go into the girls bathrooms and girls safe spaces and violate the safety and of girls, and this has to stop this has to end."
As of Thursday, there still had not been any confirmation that the student seen in the videos was transgender or that gender identity had anything to do with it, nor did any of the incidents captured on video appear to happen in a bathroom or locker room.
The information that did come out the day prior was that Tualatin police arrested someone for allegedly making a shooting threat to the school on Snapchat last Thursday evening, which prompted police to respond to the school Friday morning. That suspect was a juvenile, police and the district said.
Authorities have not said if any suspect has been identified in the separate emailed bomb threats that prompted evacuations at Hazelbrook on Friday, messages that came in while police were already at the school and which the district has characterized as being much more specific. According to TTSD, the FBI investigated the threats and found that they came from outside of the country.
In both cases, law enforcement officials have said that the threats were determined not to be credible.
'We as adults have to do better'
Jules Ackermann used to serve as Hazelbrook Middle School's Building Equity Coordinator, working for two years to ensure that the school was safe and equitable for all of the kids. She left the school at the end of last year — and even then, she said, it wasn't an easy job.
"The atmosphere, the climate of Hazelbrook's community, is not all on board and doesn't prioritize the safety of those students at all times," Ackermann told KGW. "And you know, there were times I can think of at staff meetings where people would push back on the discussion around using proper pronouns that students want, teachers who have walked out of those meetings."
Fighting between students was common at the school when she worked there, Ackermann said, and so was the use of phones to document and post those fights.
"There have been many fights at Hazelbrook, you know ... I've been there for two years and there were fights, and I don't think it's a gender issue," Ackermann said. "That was my first thought is, 'Why are these headlines talking about their gender?' I've seen every gender fight at that school. You know, I think that a big part of it is, you know, the use of cell phones and orchestrated fights."
She said she wants to see more conversations about responsible social media use for kids and adults alike.
"Talk to them about, like, what it means to have agency over what you're seeing and what you're viewing and what you're posting, and being very like selective and responsible in what we're viewing and what we're taking in and what we're sharing on the Internet," Ackermann said. "I feel like these are conversations that are missing from schools right now — and at home, I mean, because what we're seeing is it's the adults who are sharing these videos too, it's the parents who are sharing them to ... Twitter and like, it's just disturbing that it's not even the kids right now, it's the adults. So I think we as adults have to do better, especially in education, especially as parents to talk through this with our kids."
Hazelbrook Middle School hosted a meeting for parents Wednesday night to talk about everything that's happened, and more parents are planning to pack the school board meeting scheduled for Monday.