SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In a blatantly racist post on Facebook, a South Bend middle school principal suggests the recent mass shooting at a Juneteenth celebration in Granger was committed by white people. The post was sent to RNM from an anonymous source. RNM then confirmed the authenticity with multiple sources who wished not to be named.
In the post, Tiana Batiste-Waddell shares a news article from CNN that describes several mass shootings at Juneteenth events across the country. Above the article, with zero evidence, she writes “white domestic terrorists??? Maybe…”
Batiste-Waddell is currently listed as the principal at South Bend’s Jackson Middle School.
REAL News Michiana reached out to the St. Joseph Metro Homicide Unit to see if there is any evidence to show white domestic terrorists were involved in the shooting.
“No. That has not come up in any way.” MHU Commander, Mike Grzegorek, said. You can read more about the shooting here.
RNM uncovered Batiste-Waddell’s radicalism in a story last month, showing her connections to the local Black Lives Matter organization and the Latin Kings street gang. You can read that story here. Batiste-Waddell sent RNM an erroneous cease and desist order for that story, that we promptly answered and dismissed to the nearest trash receptacle.
RNM reached out to Batiste-Waddell multiple times for comment. We left a voicemail, sent a text and sent emails to two of her email addresses. She did not respond.
Below is a copy of the email sent to her multiple accounts where RNM asks, Do you consider the words you used here as racist? Is it appropriate for an educator to be putting this kind of thing on social media? Do you have any evidence that points to the race of the shooter(s) in this case? Do you think this kind of language is divisive? Is this the kind of thing you teach your students?
RNM also reached out to the South Bend Community School Corporation for comment. A spokesperson responded with the following message:
Ms. Batiste-Waddell’s Facebook post will be referred to our employee relations team and treated like any other situation in which an employee breaches personal social media policy. She is currently assigned to Rise Up Academy.
According to the SBCSC, Batiste-Waddell is no longer the principal of Jackson Middle School and is now an “administrator on assignment at Rise Up Academy.” However, Batiste-Waddell is still listed as the principal of Jackson and an automatic out of office reply from her school district email shows her as the Jackson principal as well.
