March 18, 2024

Cedar City blackface incident

On Halloween, a video was released by a woman who was recording a group of teenagers in a Walmart in Cedar City, Utah. Three of the teens were dressed in prisoner costumes with blackface paint all over their faces and hands. One girl was dressed as a cop, and multiple other teens were with these four. The lady recording said that these teens were creating a hate crime and that they would never succeed in college or get any kinds of scholarships, which in response the teens laughed at the lady and stated they “dropped out of high school so it’s ok”.

On Tuesday Nov. 1, Cedar Valley High School located in Eagle Mountain, Utah, was harassed by the public and received a total of 4,500 calls and emails regarding the students in the video as well as thousands of comments on the high schools Facebook posts

 Sheriffs, staff and students associated with the high school received death threats and many other aggressive messages, social media direct messages, phone calls and voicemails. Many students stayed home because they were too afraid to go out to school. The harassment hit this high school because they thought those students attended school hundreds of miles away from the Walmart where the video took place. 

The teens in the video did not attend Cedar Valley High School and were over 200 miles away from the high school blamed to have “racist students” and a “racist community”.

An older lady posted on TikTok and her video went viral. The lady used the video to tell the public they went to Cedar Valley and who the students were. The video has now been deleted and many comments were left saying it was the wrong school.

The teens were not prosecuted after investigators looked at the evidence and situation and told the public there was no crime committed and that there is no reason to prosecute the group of teens. 

The school district of Cedar Valley stated that they have not had those teens enrolled in any of the schools in their school district currently and have not had them enrolled in the past either. It is verified that the teens are not in public school, and the teens stated that they do not attend a high school at all and do not plan to attend any college in the future.