The men involved received little to no disciplinary repercussions for their behavior from the High School, the School District, or from the Newport Beach Police Department--even when one of them threatened the young woman again on school grounds and despite the fact that the LGBTQ students at the school clearly understood these young men to be potentially dangerous. In fact, when this additional threat was immediately reported to Corona del Mar High School Vice Principal, Duncan McCulloch, he refused to investigate saying "I can't investigate some made up thing"--this was after Mr. McCulloch had already been shown the previous video taped threats. Later Mr. McCulloch, in cooperation with Newport Beach Police, referred the investigation of the video threats to the School Resource Officer, Tom Monarch, who was also these young mens’ football coach (documentation available here and below). The family of the young woman then went to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District requesting help for both their daughter and the LGBTQ students at the school . In a clear violation of Title IX California State Education codes, (former) NMUSD Superintendent Jeffrey Hubbard and Vice Superintendent Chuck Hineman ignored the Ketchum-Wiggins family's many emails asking for help and protection for their daughter and the students at CdM High--as did Newport-Mesa Unified School Board members: Dana Black, Michael Collier, Karen Yelsey, Walt Davenport, Martha Fluor, Judy Franco and Board President David Brooks. It should be noted that the mother of one of these perpetrators is a close personal friend of Karen Yelsey and also endorsed Yelsey in her run for school board (documentation here). These school officials continued to ignore the family's requests for help up until March 4--over a month after the incidents were reported to the High School to the District and to the School Board. Shortly thereafter the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a case against the NMUSD District on behalf of the Ketchum-Wiggins family and the LGBTQ students at the school. The case was settled out of court in August 2009 and, as a result, the District agreed to issue an apology to the victim and to implement LGBTQ and gender-related ant-bias training for teachers, district officials and students at CdM High. Despite all this, to date, the men who made the video have gone undisciplined--in fact, they have been lauded and protected by the High School and the District: two days after the video was reported to the school Joey Jones played on the school's basketball team (documentation here and below); six days after reporting the video one of the biggest school fundraisers, for the 2009 Senior Class' "Grad Nite,"was held at the home of Noah Molnar; fifteen days after reporting the video two of these men, Max Haase and Noah Molnar, were named by their football coaches to the "Football Dreamteam" (documentation here and below); throughout that spring Lacrosse season--from February through May--Noah Molnar and Max Haase never missed even a single game because of their behavior and, at the end of the school year Noah Molnar was named athlete of the year by the high school (documentation here and below). In contrast, the victim finished out her senior year primarily by home schooling as the school refused to restrict these men from the school campus. She spent what little time she was on campus inventing circuitous routes which would insure she did not meet up with these men. Several teachers stepped forward to help her navigate the campus safely (an email from one of those teacher is here). And, the only concession she ever received from the School or the District--an agreement to issue stay away orders to the men prohibiting them from contacting her while on school grounds--was broken repeatedly throughout the remainder of the year including on the very next school day after it was issued. As a result of this additional act of defiance on the part of these men, the school elected to pay two staff members to monitor them when the young woman needed to be on campus or otherwise engage in school activities, further restricting her ability to be at the school while tacitly acknowledging the dangerous nature of these men (documentation here and below).  The LGBTQ students who came forward to report incidents of violence and intimidation never had their concerens addressed at all.

As a result of Newport-Mesa Unified's August 2009 settlement with the ACLU the school district was required to conduct an investgation into their own negligence and mishandling of the threats made by these senior athletes. They were also required to issue a report to the young woman's family explaining how the investigation was mishandled, by whom it was mishandled, and it was assumed that they would pursue appropriate disciplinary action against school personnel who were negligent in protecting the young woman and enforcing the District's zero-tolerance policy in regard to violence and bullying. In perhaps an ultimate act of distregard for the young woman--and as a final demonstration of NMUSD's devaluation of young women and LGBTQ students in general--the District issued a three-page statement whose only substantive sentence reads "It is the District's finding and disposition of this complaint that unfortunate events prevented the processing of these issues consistent with the provisions of the District's complaint proceedures." No disciplinary action was ever taken against any school personnel for their mis-handling and disregard of these threats. And, to the shock and dismay of the young woman's family, Vice Principal Duncan McCulloch, School Resource officer/football coach Tom Monarch, School Board members Dana Black, Karen Yelsey, Walt Davenport, Martha Fluor, Judy Franco, Board President David Brooks and Newport Mesa Unified Vice Superintendent Chuck Hineman are all still currently serving in their respective capacities at Corona del Mar High and in the Newport Mesa Unified School District.

The parents of the young woman who was threatened--Dr. Karyl Ketchum Wiggins & Michael Wiggins--can be emailed here.

Update: Jeffrey Hubbard was found guilty of felony embezzelment and no longer serves as Superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. While this is very good news for the students in NMUSD, we still need to replace Board members Dana Black, Karen Yelsey, Walt Davenport, Martha Fluor, Judy Franco and Board President David Brooks with people who care about the well being of all students. 

Brooks, Black and Fluor are up for re-election in November 2012; let's vote them out.

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This page documents the video-taped threats made by (from L to R) Dutch Lamons, Max Haase and Noah Molnar--all senior athletes at Corona del Mar High School at the time-- to rape and "shoot in the head" another 17-year-old female student. These men also use homophobic hate speech throughout their video in an obvious attempt to create a hostile environment for LGBTQ students at the school. After recording this video these young men posted it on the public Facebook "wall" of a fourth senior, Joey Jones, on January 23, 2009 in Newport Beach, California.  WARNING: These young men experienced little to no disciplinary repercussions from these events and thereby may be emboldened to act out violently again in the future against both women and the LGBTQ community. The video itself can be viewed to the left with names of innocent students taken out and subtitles from the court-certified transcript included. All materials on this page are made available toward the documentation of these threats and of the Newport-Mesa Unified School Board's mis-handling of this matter. At the bottom of this page are links to the court-certified transcript of the video; to a screenshot of the video in its original context on the Facebook wall; to several news articles written about the case; and to other case documentation. The parents of the young woman who was threatened--Dr. Karyl Ketchum Wiggins & Michael Wiggins--can be emailed here.

It is estimated that, at minimum, 600 CdM high school and middle school students watched as these three senior athletes discussed murdering ("shoot her in the head with a sniper gun"), and then raping ("then you can fuck her in the back of my truck") a young woman at the school. These young men also used the language of pornography to denigrate the young woman ("do you catch cum in your mouth") and peppered the approximately three-minute video with homophobic hate speech.