District Identifies Person Responsible For Racist Graffiti Found At McClatchy High

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The person responsible for the racist graffiti found at C.K. McClatchy High School last week has been identified, the Sacramento City Unified School District announced Thursday.

Last Friday, someone wrote the words "White" and "Colored" over water fountains at McClatchy High, a reference to the Jim Crow era. The district's race and equity monitor, Mark T. Harris, told CBS13 a Black female student confessed to the vandalism and cameras caught her in action.

Harris stopped short of calling it a racially motivated act.

"I don't believe those words that were on those water fountains were racist," Harris said. "I do not believe they were hate crime or hate speech. Part of it quite honestly is because the admitted perpetrator is a young African American woman."

During the interview, she said it was a prank. But community activists like Berry Accius from the Voice of the Youth say there should be zero-tolerance.

"I disagree with it not being a hate crime because at the end of the day we understand when you have colored on one water faucet and white on another kind of faucet what that means – whether it's 1950 or 2022," Accius said.

He joined activists from the Sacramento NAACP and Black Youth Leader calling for the district to be more transparent of its findings. They also raised doubts about the confession citing mistrust of the district's handling of racists acts in the past.

The revelation comes at a time when Sacramento City Unified School District has been plagued with racial incidents.

Similar incidents have occurred within the district over the several months. Just this week, graffiti was found at Abraham Lincoln Elementary and featured messages reading "KKK",  the n-word and a drawing of a swastika.

In a statement, the district said they are working with law enforcement, hired an attorney focusing on social justice issues, implemented anti-racism training for staff, and are promoting "social emotional learning" in hope of preventing future similar incidents.

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