Modesto Police Launch Hate Crime Investigation Over Snapchat Threat

MODESTO (CBS13) — A Modesto student says a classmate made a violent threat against him and posted it on Snapchat. When he alerted school administrators, he says they did nothing about it.

The attorney for the student says his client knows who the boy in the video is, but has had no other interactions with him. There is also a second boy in the recording heard off-camera who says the victim's name.

That attorney says Central Catholic High School didn't do enough to protect his client's life.

The video wasn't meant to last long for viewers. It was posted on Snapchat and meant to self-delete after 24 hours. But an African American senior at the school claims he knows the classmate and says someone off-camera said his name.

Attorney Jacq Williams says the video is a threat and a hate crime.

"Above this being a hate crime, this is an issue of safety, and issue of responsibility," he said.

The senior and his mother showed the video to the dean two weeks ago, and they say the school did nothing about it.

"He says 'Mom, he's in my class.' She said what do you mean? He said 'He's an office assistant and he's delivering a message from the office to my class,'" Williams said.

School president Jim Pecchenino says the school is investigating and working with Modesto Police.

"The video I have seen, interestingly enough, did not have the firearm in it," he said. "You can always second guess yourself on the immediacy of the situation, certainly in this day and time. We absolutely want our students to feel safe. We want to respond aggressively."

But Williams says the school should have contacted police immediately and not taken any chances with students' lives.

"In light of the situations going around the country, gun violence, acts of terrorism, people at schools doing mass shootings, I don't think we should take this issue lightly," he said.

The school declined to reveal if the student in the video and the one heard off-camera face any disciplinary action from the school.