{"id":114343,"date":"2019-01-23T07:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T11:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=114343"},"modified":"2019-01-23T07:59:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T11:59:10","slug":"innocent-covington-high-schoolers-facing-death-threats-school-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=114343","title":{"rendered":"Innocent Covington High Schoolers Facing Death Threats, School Closed"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Covington High School closed Tuesday, uproar persists after video of encounter with Native American man<\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->By Greg Norman | Fox News<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/embed.js?id=5992331288001&#038;w=466&#038;h=263\"><\/script><noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\">foxnews.com<\/a><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The Kentucky high school whose students are at the center of a viral video controversy after last week\u2019s March for Life Rally says it will stay closed Tuesday due to safety concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The announcement by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/video-appears-to-show-native-american-using-racially-charged-insults-in-viral-confrontation-with-catholic-students\">Covington High School<\/a>\u00a0Principal Robert Rowe was made in a letter sent to parents, students and staff. Students from the Catholic school are said to be facing death threats \u2013 and have been widely maligned and vilified online \u2013 after a video clip emerged Saturday that gave some commenters an inaccurate impression that the teens were harassing a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, following the pro-life demonstration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter meeting with local authorities, we have made the decision to cancel school and be closed on Tuesday, January 22, in order to ensure the safety of our students, faculty and staff,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cAll activities on campus will be canceled for the entire day and evening.\u00a0 Students, parents, faculty and staff are not to be on campus for any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Campbell County Boys Basketball team, which was supposed to be playing Covington tonight in a game, also announced its game\u00a0was canceled Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease continue to keep the Covington Catholic Community in your prayers,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good &#8211; maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1087689415814795264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 22, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Subsequent video footage released over the weekend revealed\u00a0the students were accosted and yelled at before Phillips and other Native American activists approached them. Another group \u2013 the so-called Black Hebrew Israelites \u2013 were heard shouting abuse at the students for wearing \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hats.<\/p>\n<p>Jill Hamlin, a chaperone mother who says she was there with her son and the students during the incident, told \u2018Fox &amp; Friends\u2019 Tuesday she believes the boys were \u201ctargeted for what they stood for, which is Christianity and the right for life,\u201d and \u201cpartially because of the color of their skin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were there for the March for Life \u2013 it\u2019s an annual trip that the Covington Catholic High School goes to and we meet every year at the Lincoln Memorial at the end of the day to catch our buses,\u201d Hamlin added. \u201cWe were not there for any other purpose other than to attend the peaceful March for Life, which we did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nick Sandmann, a junior at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/violent-threats-against-covington-catholic-high-school-students-under-investigation\">Covington Catholic High School<\/a>\u00a0who was caught in the center of the controversy, spoke out for the first time on Sunday. He released a statement saying he and his classmates were taunted by a group of African-American protesters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/covington-catholic-high-school-students-smeared-by-mainstream-media-lies-dont-expect-an-apology\"><strong>TODD STARNES: COVINGTON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SMEARED BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA LIES &#8212; DON&#8217;T EXPECT AN APOLOGY<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He said he was \u201cmortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen &#8212; that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart and did not witness any of my classmates doing that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Following the revelations of full video footage of the incident, some prominent social media users have backtracked their condemnation of the students &#8212; though many have left their criticism and calls to reveal private information still live on social media &#8212; admitting the initial footage didn\u2019t reveal the full picture.<\/p>\n<p>President Trump has offered support to the students, accusing the media of smearing the teenagers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be,\u201d he tweeted Tuesday. \u201cThey have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good &#8211; maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kenton County Commonwealth&#8217;s Attorney Rob Sanders told the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday that threats against the school and students are being investigated.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t reveal the exact nature of the threats, only that students and the school were threatened with actual violence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s scary. My son works &#8212; I have been nervous to have him even go to his job because I don&#8217;t know who is out there and what they are doing,&#8221; Hamlin told &#8216;Fox &amp; Friends&#8217; about the threats. &#8220;My husband was going to follow my son to school this morning because we just don&#8217;t know what the volatility of the situation is with these people that react and they don&#8217;t know the full story.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Fox News\u2019 Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/covington-high-school-closes-tuesday-as-uproar-persists-following-viral-video-of-confrontation-with-native-american-man\">https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/covington-high-school-closes-tuesday-as-uproar-persists-following-viral-video-of-confrontation-with-native-american-man<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Covington High School closed Tuesday, uproar persists after video of encounter with Native American man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}