A Long Island vocational school's only two black students were taunted by three white classmates who allegedly used a black doll to reenact a mock lynching in shop class. School officials confirmed yesterday that the three high schoolers accused of tying the hands of the doll and wrapping a noose around its neck were arrested this week by Riverhead cops.
The boys were suspended from the Harry B. Ward Technical and Academic Center the day after the alleged incident, which occurred Jan. 31, the day Coretta Scott King died.
"We were on it from day one," said Riverhead Town Police Detective Sgt. Joseph Loggia, denying allegations by some residents that cops had to be pushed into taking action.
"It was a case that we wanted to get right and have the facts, and we were conducting interviews during that period."
The accused students - Christopher Bekieaz, 17, of Calverton and Joseph Chew, 17, and Joseph Jasinski, 16, both of Riverhead - were charged with misdemeanor harassment and released into the custody of their parents.
Authorities said the trio conspired to hang a black action figure from a door hinge inside a car-engine repair class.
The teacher was not fully aware of what was going on in the classroom, officials said.
"This figure was hanging in the back of the room, off a hinge that was out of the teacher's view," said Valerie Krizel, an associate superintendent with Eastern Suffolk BOCES, the agency that runs the vocational school.
"He heard a commotion of kids making noise in the back, and he told them, 'Put it away,' and that their behavior wasn't appropriate."
The instructor was not reassigned or suspended, although the school's investigation is continuing, Krizel said.
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