Cheerleaders claim they dealt with racist comments following Friday night game

By KAITLYN NAPLES, ERIN EDWARDS, ROGER SUSANIN

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    MANCHESTER, CT (WFSB) — The CIAC is investigating claims that students yelled racist comments during a high school football game between Montville and East Catholic High Schools.

One student told Channel 3 that it was a close game and tensions were high. When they went to leave the football field Friday night, that’s when the situation took a turn.

“The entire weekend been emotional and heartbreaking,” a woman who only wanted to be identified as Montessa said.

It was the first away game of the season for the Montville football team and Nadya, a junior, was excited to cheer on the team. Things were tense when the game went into overtime.

“The student section came rushing down and over to where we were standing, and they were cheering on their team at first and we ignored them and walked to get our bags. The football team came in and started stomping on our stuff,” Nadya explained.

Nadya said when the cheer team was able to get their things and head to the bus, that’s when several students started yelling racist comments.

“These three or four kids said, ‘Go home n-word, go home n-word’ to me and they were just screaming,” she said.

Nadya’s mother, Montessa, said her daughter called her hysterically crying.

“I was heartbroken at first, but disgusted. Disgusted that she had to endure that, that somebody spoke to her that way,” Montessa said.

Channel 3 reached out to both schools about the incident.

In a statement, the Montville superintendent of schools said:

“Based upon the serious nature of accounts we have received regarding the incident which occurred at Friday night’s football game against East Catholic (which was hosted at East Catholic), I have requested that CIAC conduct an external investigation. CIAC has appointed an investigator to gather the evidence necessary to gain a complete understanding of the event.”

East Catholic’s president also issued a statement on Monday that said they have zero tolerance for “derisive or unkind words or behavior directed at fellow students or students from other schools.”

The statement went on to say:

“We continue to investigate issues raised at last Friday’s football game against Montville High School and, while we do not believe anything inappropriate was said, we take this matter seriously and have met with our student body today to reiterate our Student Code of Conduct and the behavioral expectations we have for our students. We have been in contact with the CIAC and will cooperate with any next steps, and I ask if anyone has information which would assist in our investigation, please feel free to share it with me.”

Parents Eyewitness News spoke with said they were frustrated that there were no police at the game. None of the parents filed a police complaint.

Nadya added that the East Catholic cheerleaders did reach out after the game and apologized for what their team had to go through.

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