Three Mountain View teenagers were arrested for committing a hate crime, among other charges, after the teens allegedly yelled racial slurs and threatened to kill four 11-year-old Latino boys.

The three white teenagers, two 15-year-old boys and one 14-year-old boy, were shouting racially offensive statements about Mexicans to the four Latino youth from inside their house, according to statements made by the victims to the police. After the two groups started arguing, the suspects came out of the house carrying a BB gun. The suspects, who are all students at Mountain View High School, allegedly continued to make hateful remarks and threatened to kill the victims with their weapon.

This incident is the second potential hate crime to hit Mountain View recently. Spanish-language signs put up by one of the local school districts were stolen, defaced, and re-posted in late October with the words “No More Aliens.” Police have been unable to definitively determine if the vandalism constitutes a hate crime, but school officials are stepping up their efforts to ensure their signs are safe.

This case is also the latest in a discouraging string of crimes committed by high school-aged youth against Latinos and immigrants. While thankfully not the case in this situation, we have all too many times seen how quickly these sorts of events can turn tragic, as evidenced in the recent hate crime killings in other parts of the country of Marcelo Lucero [1] Luis Ramirez [2]. Margie MacDonald, a leader in the Not In Our Town movement in Billings, Montana, recently contributed a letter [3] to us that discusses how communities can react when their youth commit acts of intolerance.

Send A Message Against Hate in Mountain View

Help us take action by affirming our dedication to combating intolerance in our communities. Let’s send a strong message that these kinds of acts are not what our communities stand for and support our friends in Mountain View who are doing the same.

Here are four things we can do:

1. TALK ABOUT IT with your friends, your family, in the classroom and in your community.
2. SEND A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT to the youth who were harassed by leaving a comment at NIOT.org [4].
3. ORGANIZE A SCREENING of a Not In Our Town or Not In Our School video where young people can talk about standing up to intolerance.
4. SHARE YOUR IDEAS with the residents of Mountain View about how they can stand together against hate.