After school walkouts, protest marches and an FBI investigation, authorities concluded that a black girl was responsible for creating an Instagram account that sent racist messages to students at White Bear Lake High School.
The city of White Bear Lake was torn by controversy last month as tearful students made protest signs and gave speeches outside their school after an anonymous Instagram profile called members of the school’s Black Excellence Club racial slurs. Protesters subsequently demanded action be taken to hold whoever ran the profile accountable.
However, it looks like they will not get their wish, as the black student responsible for creating the account will not face any charges.
The College Fix recently obtained a police report which identifies the owner of the account as a black female student and member of the same Black Excellence Club targeted by the racist account. This student will not face penalties for the hate-crime hoax or for lying to investigators during the local and federal investigations, authorities told The Fix.
“I didn’t send those messages,” the student told investigators, per the police report, after investigators concluded that the messages were sent from her home IP address. “Like, I have a question, did the messages come from my house, or was it just the account created at my house?” she continued, attempting to defend herself.
The city of White Bear Lake appeared to make excuses for the student, saying she merely sought to “raise awareness of social and racial injustice due to past incidents that occurred at school.” Although the original news release containing this excuse has since been deleted, it remains quoted across several Minnesota news outlets and Newsweek.
It appears as though the school, authorities, and city all understood that the owner of the racist account was black but refused to release this information as protesting was in progress.
The White Bear Lake superintendent also seemed to be aware that the account was not run by a genuine racist when he assured parents that the controversial posts were a “hoax.” He was then forced to apologize for this characterization but still did not reveal the race of the apparent perpetrator.
Before the race of the offending individual was disclosed, students came to the conclusion that the perpetrator was Avery Severson, a girl who founded a conservative club at the school. Even after her name was cleared, Severson still reported feeling unsafe around her angered peers.
“I was just shocked when I saw that they were accusing me. I felt unsafe. I felt unsafe at school … I just felt unsafe in my community,” she told Fox News.
It remains unclear why the involved parties were hesitant to release information about the account owner’s race when such a revelation may have calmed the town, assuring that there was no genuine white supremacist threat.
Meanwhile, some members of the media seem to suggest that the existence of genuine racists is irrelevant as “false threats” cause “real fear.”
Kyle Hooten
Kyle Hooten is Managing Editor of Alpha News. His coverage of Minneapolis has been featured on television shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and in print media outlets like the Wall Street Journal.
