Victim’s mother says central Minnesota school threat was racially motivated

WADENA, Minn. — What would you do if a student threatened to kill your child or harm others?

Kristy Higgins, of Wadena, said she alerted authorities about Snapchat photos sent by a Wadena-Deer Creek student on Jan. 21 that did just that — threats from a classmate with a history of harassing her interracial daughter.

“He Snapchatted my daughter and told her that he was going to kill her and all her Black friends and then was going to shoot the school and sent his pictures of the guns,” Higgins said about one of the boys she claims is a bully.

The WDC School District canceled classes on Jan. 22 as a result, but Higgins claimed WDC Middle/High School Principal Tyler Church failed to take her seriously in the past.

Contributed / Kristy Higgins

“It's been going on probably since October, and I've contacted the school probably three or four times and I've talked to the principal. My daughter was being called racial slurs and it was disrupting her whole day,” said Higgins, a wife and mother of five.

“He told me that he would handle it and he never told me anything else. He never told me what happened to them, what they did. I asked for, like, a parent meeting, and that just didn't happen.”

Higgins said a pair of boys attending WDC Middle/High School would intimidate her daughter, who is a 10th grader, simply because her mother is white and her father, Robert Higgins, is Black.

Contributed / Kristy Higgins

Kristy Higgins said of one of the boys: “He would, like, follow her around and just call her all kinds of names — you know, ‘monkey’ and, you know, he would use the ‘n——r’ word and just stuff like that — in hallways and in classrooms.”

Higgins works as a phlebotomy technician at the Staples-based Lakewood Health System. But when the bullying escalated recently to include Snapchat photos sent on Jan. 21 depicting firearms, she said she had to share the alarming pictures with authorities before something tragic might happen.

“We are thankful that someone came forward with the information as quickly as they did,” Superintendent Lee Westrum said in a news release the day classes resumed on Jan. 23.

Higgins said: “When this stuff happens, it's got to be dealt with. You can’t just let this go. I mean, this is why kids kill themselves or don't attend school, because nobody stopped it.”

Higgins said her children have been a part of the WDC School District for three years and the harassment of her children began last school year.

“All threats to our school or students are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly,” Church said in the release. “Unfortunately, this is the stuff we have to deal with in today's world, especially with social media. Local law enforcement is handling the situation.”

Contributed / Kristy Higgins

Higgins said her 16-year-old daughter is no longer enrolled in Wadena Middle/High School after being tormented by her peers. She also said the boy who sent the Snapchat photo to her child has been expelled.

“She never wanted to go to school,” Higgins said before the expulsion. “I fought with her and fought with her and then she’d skip classes. … She didn't want to go to the class with the boys, and it just turned into a big mess.”

Higgins believes the problem of racism in the community starts in the home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 1.1% of Wadena County’s residents identified as Black and 2.3% as interracial, compared to the 95.1% who identified themselves as white in the latest census.

Contributed / Kristy Higgins

“I have two kids in the elementary school that haven't been to school all week because I have a first grader that's getting teased on the bus,” Higgins said last week. “And it’s just ridiculous. … Racism is a learned behavior. You’re not born racist.”

Classes and school operations resumed Jan. 23 after the one-day cancellation with “an increased police presence” in and around the school, according to school officials, and counselors were available for any students who wanted to talk to someone about the threat.

“My problem with the whole situation is they don't tell you anything as parents. … That's very frustrating because every parent has the right to know,” Higgins said.

Church stated in the release: “We understand that there may be questions, but at this time we are limited as to what information we can disclose due to data privacy laws and the fact that this is still an active investigation.”

Higgins said of the Snapchat sender: “He lives (near) us, but we don't know if he's just wandering around or if he’d be in a different school and is going to do that again.”

Higgins was born and raised in St. Paul but eventually settled in Wadena, where she has lived with her family for five years to avoid some of the problems associated with big-city life.

“Anywhere you go, you're going to have the racism problem,” she said. “It's just when it happens though, you have to stop it, especially in the schools. You have to stop it somehow.”

Education Week journalists began tracking shootings on K-12 school property that resulted in firearm-related injuries or deaths. There have been 185 such shootings since 2018. There were 38 school shootings with injuries or deaths last year.

“My goal is to hopefully stay there, but we’ll see how it goes,” Higgins said. “The elementary school is great — my kids love it there — just having issues with the high school is all.”

Those with questions or concerns about this situation are encouraged to contact Church at 218-632-2155 or tchurch@wdc2155.k12.mn.us . Anyone who has any information that could assist in the investigation into the threat should call the police at 218-631-7700.