2 teens charged with hate crimes appear before Las Vegas judge

Sitting inside a courtroom for juveniles on Monday morning, parent Akiko Cooks held back tears as she faced the two teenage suspects for the first time.

Both boys, 15 and 16, have been jailed since their arrest March 19 in connection with a series of racist threats on Instagram against black students at Arbor View High School.

The account appeared to have been created specifically for the threats, which stated that the school’s hallways needed to be “cleansed” of black students in a “Columbine pt. 2,” referring to the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School.

Cooks’ 15-year-old son is one of nine victims identified in the case whose candid photos were posted to the account with the threats.

“It was very overwhelming because before today I didn’t even know who they were,” Cooks said of the suspects.

At Monday’s hearing, after brief arguments from a prosecutor and defense attorneys, Juvenile Court Judge William Voy decided that the pair would remain in jail until their next hearing.

They face charges of making terrorist threats, conspiring to commit an act of terrorism, cyberbullying, hate crimes and breach of peace, police have said.

Officials have not released the suspects’ names, and Brigid Duffy, Clark County’s chief juvenile prosecutor, explained why.

“At this time, we have not moved to certify them as adults,” Duffy told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the hearing.

Still, in court she argued that the suspects pose a threat, adding that one of them had access to at least three firearms at home. The weapons were confiscated by police, she said.

”The families don’t feel safe. The kids don’t feel safe. Our community shouldn’t feel safe,” Duffy said.

As she read snippets of the threats in court, Cooks and at least seven other parents of the identified victims sobbed into the palms of their hands. Most of the group was wearing shirts reading “NO RACISM IN SCHOOLS.”

“Within that Instagram account, there were 10 photographs of children smiling, laughing, enjoying their school day in a cafeteria,” Duffy said. “And underneath every single one of those pictures was the most racist, hateful statements about wanting to cleanse the hallways, calling them monkeys, saying that they want to go Columbine Part 2 on them. And that makes this case different than every other terroristic threat case we’ve had.”

But Adam Solinger, who is representing the teen accused of creating the account, and court-appointed attorney J.D. Evans, who is representing the co-defendant, asked Voy to release their clients on house arrest.

Solinger said his client is not a threat to the community. He noted that the teenager had characterized the social media posts as “offensive jokes” during a psychiatric evaluation.

Voy said he would revisit the possibility of house arrest during the pair’s next hearing. He then turned his attention to a handful of Clark County School District police officers in the courtroom.

“Let me deal with these two,” he said. “But this is a symptom of a larger problem out there, and some form of intervention may need to happen out there at Arbor View.”

Meanwhile, Cooks’ son, a sophomore, has not returned to school since the threats were made. His mother said she is terrified to send him back, even though he has told her he doesn’t want to switch schools.

“What if he doesn’t come home one day?” she said. “This has changed our life. This racist culture has brewed for too long, and it’s ugly.”

But that’s a conversation for a later date, she said.

In the meantime, Cooks promised to become more involved at school board meetings and attend every hearing in the case. And she said she hopes other parents will join her.

“They have to see our faces,” she said. “They need to feel our pain.”

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.