NAUGATUCK, Conn. — Naugatuck High School students marched from the school to the town green Wednesday afternoon, in response to racist Snapchat messages that surfaced last week. The messages were allegedly sent by police chief Steven Hunt and associate principal at Naugatuck High School Johnna Hunt's daughter. The messages referenced police shootings against Black people.
"The hurt I felt seeing those messages, seeing them broadcast. Minutes later they were on everybody's Snapchat stories," said Atlanta Atkinson, a junior at Naugatuck High School.
The messages were sent two years ago. The parents say it was when their daughter was 13. However, people at the protest said to them, it did not take away from the gravity of the words that were shared.
"When I was 13, I heard things like that said to me. When I was 13 I felt the impact of those words. It doesn't matter if it was two years ago it doesn't matter if she was 13 when I was 8 people were saying racially insensitive comments to me," said Atkinson.
"I had to explain to my six and seven-year old kids what racism is and I want to make sure that they get to live in a world, in a Naugatuck in the United States of America where they're not judged by the color of their skin," said Diana Lawrence of Naugatuck.
For the past four days, police chief Hunt has declined comment or interview because of the ongoing investigation into the messages.
Four days ago he and his wife did release an open letter to the community which read in part,
"On behalf of our family, I sincerely apologize to all those who were hurt by this. We are left, however, as parents of a scared, regretful child who has and will continue to suffer the consequences of her poor and inexcusable actions."
The main message of the protesters was that they want to see accountability.
"I don't want it to be treated as oh this happened this one time. No, I want this to be an example to other people, not necessarily to think about what they say, but to think about their mindset," said Matthew Davy, a sophomore at Naugatuck High School.
Mayor Pete Hess says there are currently four separate investigations into what happened that will determine what accountability will look like.
"They're looking at the entire incident, what happened, how it happened culture of the family, the culture of the school, the culture of the town peer pressure," said Hess.
