Covington Catholic High School students will spend the day at home after the school closed citing security concerns Tuesday, the latest chapter in the media-fueled controversy over a group of high school students falsely accused of harassing a Native American elder in Washington, D.C. over the weekend.
“After 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,” reads a letter from Covington Catholic Principal Robert Rowe, according to Fox19. “All activities on campus will be cancelled for the entire day and evening. Students, parents, faculty and staff are not to be on campus for any reason. Please continue to keep the Covington Catholic Community in your prayers.”
While other schools in the area are also closed due to extreme cold weather, Covington was the only one to cite safety concerns as their reason for their decision.
Covington Catholic was initially set to remain open Tuesday, but reports had indicated there would be a strong police presence at the building due to planned protests and threats made against the school. The American Indian Movement Chapter of Indiana and Kentucky, which had originally planned to protest outside the school Tuesday morning, is now holding their event outside the Diocese of Covington.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, police are still stationed outside the school's doors.
The first flames of this social media inferno were sparked Saturday by a rash of now-bunked news reports that a group of Covington Catholic teenage boys sporting MAGA hats had been caught on video taunting a peaceful Native American man in front of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday following the annual March for Life. Unedited video emerged soon after showing that the boys had actually been approached not only by Nathan Phillips and his Native American followers, but had also been the target of vile and racist slurs hurled by a hate group called the Black Israelites, who were also protesting in D.C.
Despite many news outlets and reporters walking back and even denouncing their own initial reports of the situation, Covington Catholic High School and its students have been the target of online harassment, open calls for violence from many left-wing celebrities and personalities, and even death threats. Radical liberal talking heads like anti-Trump comedienne Kathy Griffin encouraged their followers to publicly identify the boys and post their addresses and personal information online.
Covington Catholic junior Nick Sandmann, the subject of a now-infamous and misleading photo appearing to show him smirking at the Native American elder, said in a written statement that he’s been the target of repeated online assaults and physical threats since returning home to Kentucky on Saturday.