A Connecticut teen and his father are speaking publicly for the first time about months of racist bullying the 14-year-old allegedly endured as an eighth-grader in East Haddam Public Schools.
The father and son say law enforcement and district officials have left their family in the dark about the status of investigations into the hundreds of racist messages, photos and videos Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School students allegedly sent the young, Black teen.
Last month, leaders of the Middlesex County NAACP and Black Lives Matter 860 called out town leaders at a June 12 board of education meeting and demanded that the alleged behavior be investigated as a hate crime.
A representative of the Connecticut State Police Media Relations Public Information Office confirmed that “The CSP Hate Crimes Unit is involved and has been assisting with this investigation,” in an email to the Courant on Tuesday.
While the family continues to pursue accountability and answers, the father told the Courant the experience has forced his family to flee the state.
Due to privacy and safety concerns, the student and his father requested to remain anonymous. In a GoFundMe created to raise money for relocation costs and racial trauma therapy, the family referred to the father and son as “Carter” and “Justin.” The Courant used the same names for this article.
Over the last week, the Courant spoke with Justin and sat down with Carter to review the contents of the phone and relay their story.
Bullying and racism
The first thing Justin noticed when he toured Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School was the “lack of Black kids in the school.”
His previous school in Delaware was much more “mixed,” Justin said. According to demographic data published by the Connecticut State Department of Education, more than 88% of East Haddam public school students are white. The number of Black students in the district is so low that the state suppresses the data “to ensure confidentiality.”
“I pointed it out to my parents (that) I was probably going to be the only one,” Justin said. “My parents convinced me it would be OK, so I went along with it.”
When Justin started classes in January of 2023, he did not know anyone. Justin said he came into that first week feeling like he “didn’t really want to talk to anybody,” but as the new kid in a class of less than 90 students, Justin said he became a magnet for attention.
“I found myself making a lot of friends quickly,” Justin said.
For months, everything seemed good, until February of this school year, when Justin said his “friends” took a turn.
Justin said the incidents began after a social studies lesson on Black History Month. In class, Justin said they learned about slavery and how monkey imagery is racist.
Justin said the behavior started with “little jokes,” comments like “It’s your month,” or “It’s your kind’s month.”
Justin said that at the time, he did not see it as “anything bad,” so he “let it slide.”
But soon after, Justin said the incidents spiraled. The “friends” who Justin now refers to as “kids from his school,” began taunting him with monkey pictures and calling him the N-word, according to Justin’s account as well as photos, videos and messages the Courant viewed on his phone.
In school, Justin said his classmates would steal his phone and refuse to give it back, spamming his storage with photos and videos. In clips viewed by the Courant, students used racial slurs and sexually explicit language and gestures directed towards Justin and at times, at least one other student.
“Some people said the N-word to my face directly in school,” Justin said. He explained that even though school staff were around during the alleged incident, “No teachers heard because … they weren’t paying attention to us directly.”
One day, Justin said he missed his bus. When he got on a different bus with one of his classmates, Justin said the student snapped pictures of his face.
“This dumbass n— got on my bus,” one of the Snapchats shared with the Courant said.
“I don’t like this guy for his color,” read the other.
At a sleepover, videos recorded on Justin’s phone show a student using the N-word multiple times before telling Justin to “Shut the f— up, n—.”
On Snapchat, Justin was part of a group chat titled the “Klu Klux Klan.” In texts and Snapchats the Courant viewed on Justin’s phone, students sent him photos of monkeys, often accompanied by messages like “Justin stop taking pics” or “Caught you.”
“Hey n—,” one student wrote in a Snapchat. “U should be in the monkey exhibit. U mom should too.”
In another video saved to Justin’s phone, a student looks at the camera and says “I didn’t see you there n—. Want to go clean my lawn for me? Oh wait, I’m going to whip you first.”
Justin said he told himself the behavior was not a big deal — these students said they were his friends. But during this period, Justin said he found himself feeling “a little more angry than usual,” and he now believes the repeated incidents “took a toll” on his mental health.
“At first I didn’t really try to do anything to stop it, but I thought it was OK — almost everyone around me was doing it,” Justin said. “Eventually things got to a point where I was like, ‘OK, you got to stop doing this.’ But they didn’t listen, so I just pushed it to the side and was like. ‘Alright, that’s what they do.’”
“I thought it was normal, but I think deep down I did know it was wrong, so I didn’t tell anybody about it,” Justin said. “I kept it in for so long.”
Dad discovers messages
On the morning of May 28, Justin’s father, Carter asked his son to remove the passcode from his phone for a random phone check.
Carter said the first thing he saw was a series of texts from one of Justin’s classmates.
In the exchange viewed by the Courant, the student texted Justin the N-word over and over. According to Carter, It was sent 311 times.
In the midst of the barrage, Justin wrote, “I hate my kind.”
“I agree,” the student replied, before continuing with the spam.
Carter said he and his fiancee “were under the impression that everything was fine” with their son, but Justin’s phone told a completely different story.
While Justin said the incidents started in February, Carter said he found messages dating back to December.
Deeply disturbed by the phone’s contents, Carter said he and Justin went to the middle school the next day and met with a guidance counselor and the school’s now-retired Principal Jason Peacock.
Justin described how the ensuing days came with a wave of confusion.
“I didn’t eat for the first day,” Justin said. “It all hit me at once that this is all wrong.”
After the discovery, Carter said he and his fiancee decided to pull Justin out of school. He finished the rest of the year online.
East Haddam’s bullying policy “Requires the development of student safety support plans for students against whom an act of bullying was directed that addresses safety measures the school will take to protect such students against further acts of bullying,” but Carter claims the district developed no such plan for Justin.
“They had no steps in place for him to go back to school to be safe,” Carter said. “They just wanted to throw him back in school with these kids.”
Carter alleged that while four students were responsible for the worst behavior, he said a total of 10 students participated in the alleged incidents. In Justin’s 85-student class, that number represents nearly 12% of his grade.
Carter said the district would not disclose whether Justin’s alleged bullies had been removed from the school. As a result, Carter said Justin could not attend the school’s career day, the end-of-year dance, and missed his eighth-grade graduation.
East Haddam’s superintendent declined to respond to a request from the Courant to verify or deny Carter’s claims regarding the lack of communication and alleged absence of a safety plan.
In a statement emailed Wednesday night, Superintendent Teresa DeBrito said questions about Carter’s claims, and other information requested by the Courant “Falls under the protections of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which prohibits school districts from publicly sharing information that falls under the definition of educational records. As such, the District is prohibited by law from responding to these inquiries.”
Investigation launched
Carter said that at the start, it seemed like district officials and law enforcement were taking Justin’s allegations seriously.
But on May 31 — the day the district began its investigation, according to a statement from the superintendent — Carter said his doubts about the proceedings grew.
When school officials made repeated requests for digital copies of the photos, videos and messages, Carter declined. In a June 2 email to Director of Pupil Services Joshua Martin, Carter said counsel from the NAACP advised him that the material reviewed during meetings was enough “to conclude (the district’s) report without physical copies.”
Carter said he also grew wary that law enforcement had “botched” the criminal case by notifying students’ families about the behavior documented on Justin’s phone after Carter said students began removing themselves from group chats and deleting old messages.
According to Carter, East Haddam School Resource Officer David Southworth and Resident State Trooper Megan Jenney told Carter that law enforcement would need to pull all the data from Justin’s phone to move the case forward. Carter said he told Southworth and Jenney he would allow the data extraction if he could be present for the process. When they told him this was not possible, Carter said he refused to consent.
After days of phone calls, meetings and uncertainty, Carter claimed that on June 6, Superintendent DeBrito informed him that a determination was made, the behavior was “just kids playing.”
“When she told me that, I immediately stood up and I told her directly, verbatim, ‘If you don’t see a problem then you’re the problem,’ and I walked out,” Carter said.
East Haddam officials respond
The Courant relayed Carter’s claims in an email to the superintendent. DeBrito declined to respond, citing legal restrictions. The Courant also received no response from Jenney and Southworth.
Sgt. Luke Davis of the CSP Media Relations Unit said the case “is still an active and ongoing investigation,” in a statement to the Courant Tuesday.
Davis explained that the policies and procedures involved in data extraction prohibit relevant parties from observing the process.
Davis said when investigators perform a data extraction, the device in question must be “seized as evidence.” He said extractions “are conducted from secured areas, such as an evidence holding facility,” where access is restricted to law enforcement only.
Davis said “A person does not have to give, nor can they be compelled, to provide consent,” for a data extraction.
“Generally speaking, under such circumstances, investigators may pursue a search warrant through the court if probable cause exists that a particular device contains evidence of the commission of a crime,” Davis said.
In an email to the Courant, First Selectman Irene Haines, who also serves as East Haddam’s chief of police, said that as of June 4, Carter “stated he was not going to make any further comments or statements … regarding his son’s case” to town law enforcement.
“Racism in any form cannot and will not be tolerated in East Haddam,” Haines said in her statement. “I will work and support our Board of Education and our new superintendent to address this issue, both in our school district and our entire community.”
In communications with the district, the superintendent and members of the East Haddam Board of Education have repeatedly said that they cannot comment on ongoing legal investigations and discipline involving minors.
At a board meeting on June 12, DeBrito said “What has been on display is not a reflection of the community” and that “The vile actions by children who live in this community underscores the need to prioritize racial relations.”
“The immediate response was to involve law enforcement and we did take action,” DeBrito said.
But, with more than a month elapsed since Carter and Justin first made their report, the father and son said they are still waiting for action and accountability.
Searching for closure
Carter said he has yet to obtain a copy of the police report for his son’s case. He said he still does not know whether the district disciplined any of the students who were allegedly involved in the racist behavior.
“It just seems like it’s easier to protect 10 kids than one,” Carter said, “Those things that the kids have said to him directly to his face through messages, through videos — it’s bias, it’s intimidation, it’s bullying and they’re supposed to have more consequences than just being suspended.”
While he said the response from town and district officials has been frustrating, he said it not surprising.
“I expect it, to be blatantly honest. The system is not designed for Black people,” Carter said. “I can’t say I’m shocked. It’s more disappointment and hurt that in 2024, people would still think that it’s OK.”
Before this experience, Carter said he never talked to Justin about race.
Now, Carter said that “although it’s the reality that we’re dealing with,” Carter said race “is not the focal point” he wants for Justin’s life.
Carter said he believes it is time for Justin to “learn his heritage, his background, his culture.” Carter said he plans to get Justin “therapy to help him understand and regain self-love.”
But, he said he does not want his son “to think that every time you see a person that’s not Black, that you have to have a guard up.”
“I don’t want him to learn that,” Carter said. “I just want him to understand that it’s OK to be yourself, it’s OK that you’re Black and you can love yourself and people treat you right, you treat them right … That’s the goal for me with him.”
While Carter said Justin has left the state, Carter said living in East Haddam has not been easy for him and his fiancee.
“The town we live in is so small. When you go outside people look at you funny,” Carter said. “Everyone knows us. … You don’t know if people are going to show up at your house. You don’t know if they’re going to try to assault you when you’re at the gas station. It’s just a very eerie, uncomfortable feeling.”
Carter said that right now, “relocation is the number one priority.” Carter said his family plans to leave Connecticut as soon as they secure enough funds to move.
At a new school this fall, Justin said he is hopeful for a fresh chapter.
“I just want a new start, find new people, make new friends, people who respect me for who I am,” Justin said.
Justin’s outlook on the future is positive. Justin said he knows a lot of people have his back, and with his parents handling the situation, he said he feels “everything is going to be OK.”
Although he is eager to leave East Haddam in the past, Justin said he wants the district to hold the students accountable for their actions. He said the school leaders can decide what that punishment is, but Justin said “it has to be fair for me and for everyone who has dealt with the same thing.”
“They need to get those kids out,” Justin said.
“They need to learn that this type of stuff is not OK,” Justin said. “They put hurt in me and my family, and they can’t do that again.”
