Mike Kuhlman, the superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District, ruled in September that the football team from Saugus High School in Los Angeles County could no longer enter the field while carrying the thin blue line flag signifying support for the police.
After a school massacre in 2019 that left three kids dead, the flag has a particular significance to the Saugus community.
Seniors at Saugus, which is situated near Santa Clarita, some 40 miles east of Los Angeles, are now survivors of the incident.
KTLA reported that despite the official prohibition, team supporters nonetheless brought their own thin blue line banners to the club’s game last Friday.
Duncan Mandel, a local, railed about the flag’s existence in a Facebook post before the ban.
There is simply no justification for players to carry this picture onto the field or to utilize it on cheer blocks.
Get loud,” he said. What kind of example are we setting for our children if we remain silent while this division persists. Get moving! Simply said, this is not a First Amendment problem.
The flag is “a weapon exploited by those trying to stir hatred, injustice, and exclusion,” the local NAACP branch said in response to the ban.
In the school’s quad on November 14, 2018, Nathaniel Tennosuke Berhow took a.45-caliber semi-automatic handgun out of his bag and started shooting, striking five students before turning the weapon on himself.
Dominic Blackwell, 14, and Gracie Anne Muehlberger, 16, died from gunshot wounds. A 14-year-old boy, two females, ages 15 and 14, and two girls were injured.
Berhow fired the complete magazine of his.45 semi-automatic rifle in less than 16 seconds.
Authorities claim that if three off-duty police officers who happened to be dropping off their kids at the school at the time hadn’t been present, more people would have perished.
When they heard gunshots, they dashed inside and provided some of the wounded with first aid once the firing subsided.
The Thin Blue Line image was created to represent all law enforcement employees, just as the Red Cross symbol represents all medical workers, said Flags of Valor, a business that offers thin blue line products.
Wyatt Hawk, 16, often carried the flag into the field. Saying that we’re insulting other individuals is absurd, his mother, Lexi, told KHTS. Nobody spoke about it. Since there was no roundtable, democracy cannot exist without dialogue.
Hawk claimed to be acquainted with police officers that entered the school on the day of the 2019 shooting.
‘I believe it’s very meaningful for the Saugus Football seniors who were on campus in 2019 on the day of the (Saugus High School) shooting,’ said Jessica Suarez, another supporter of the cops, to the station. She continued by saying that her spouse is a police officer.
They’re banning it because they claim it’s a representation of the Blue Lives Matter Movement, Suarez said.
Extremists appropriated it and turned it into a derogatory emblem. This narrow blue line doesn’t imply much to us.
The Los Angeles Daily News noted that several people in the audience were sporting T-shirts that stated, “THE BLUE HAD OUR BACKS NOW WE BACK YOURS.”
‘These kids went through a lot when they were freshmen with the school shooting, and there are several kids on the team whose parents work in law enforcement and are first responders and want to show their support for them,’ retired police officer Todd Cataldi, whose son plays on the team, told the newspaper.
During the game, a pro-Black Lives Matter demonstrator tweeted about his experience and said that his goal was to “resist bootlickers.”
Ryan, the protester, said he had intended to demonstrate from the stands but had altered his mind after seeing the outpouring of support.
He said on Twitter, “I figured it would be safer to stay around out front and protest at the entrance.”
Ryan said that throughout the game, “young and elderly alike” were abusive to him. At one point, Rebecca Hindman, a local candidate for congress, requested a photo with him.
At the conclusion of the game, a school representative advised Ryan that it would be safer if he departed early, Ryan claimed.
I made the decision to depart approximately 30 minutes before the game finished after realizing that having 200 or more enraged sports fans walk by me may be hazardous for both my health and the condition of my automobile. He said, “(Saugus won, hooray!).
When Saugus High School announced that the thin blue line flag would no longer be permitted on the field during football games, several members of the community reacted with fury, the local NAACP branch stated in a statement.
But for many in the black community, the flag has been and still is a weapon used by those who want to sow discord, injustice, and exclusion, according to the news release.
The NAACP said that once the Black Lives Matter movement was founded, the thin blue line flag gained popularity.
The organization claimed: “[In 2014] Andrew Jacob, a white, well-off college student, popularized the thin blue line flag after finding [Black Lives Matter marches] repulsive. Across the nation, hate organizations have welcomed it.
“If you wish to celebrate police officers, utilize symbols that aren’t linked with injustice, bigotry, and division,” the statement said.
Two protestors gathered outside the game, one of them was a lady with a ski mask. She waved a banner saying, “Go home, Nazis.”
“One of the things that people don’t really understand is that police in the United States kill on average three people every single day, or about 1,100 people a year,” the unidentified woman told KHTS.
We’re the only country that does that, she continued. Why? This can be done in a different way.
The same protester who tweeted about his experiences, Ryan, said to KHTS, “The thin blue line as a symbol has existed for a long time.” Ryan was carrying a Black Lives Matter flag at the time.
But that flag has only really gained popularity since the Black Lives Matter movement got underway, he continued. It was an answer. The answer to this flag is that flag.
I took this flag out to support the kids who didn’t want to fly that flag before the game, Ryan continued.
Seeing that stadium tonight, I have to assume… I have to assume that the pupils feel rather alone.
On Friday, hundreds of supporters were seen in the crowd as the team played. They were observed donning and holding small blue line flags.
In the end, the squad triumphed 14-6. Ron Marome, a fan, was still more interested in promoting the cops.
It’s not about supporting anything and decrying everything else, he said, according to KTLA.
We’re simply saying hello and supporting the blue line. I’m done now. That’s how easy it was. It evolved into something that it shouldn’t have.