Coach alleged to have tossed student's Mexican flag in trash.
Sometimes I have a mean-spirited, insensitive side.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho - A high school student says he may file a lawsuit against a physical education teacher who took a Mexican flag he had brought for Cinco de Mayo and put it in the garbage.
Clint Straatman denies Froylan Camelo's version of events but said he took the flag Monday because "white kids" might have hurt the 16-year-old. He said he put it in a garbage can because he had no place else to keep it.
Camelo said he was changing into gym clothes at Minico High School in Rupert when Straatman told him, "Give me the flag."
"I said, 'What's the problem?'" Camelo, speaking in Spanish, told The Times-News of Twin Falls. "He said, 'The problem is that we are in the United States and not in Mexico.' He grabbed it from me. He threw the flag in the garbage can."
Camelo said that Straatman told him the flag would be returned at the end of the school day, but that Straatman taunted him instead.
Straatman denied saying the words Camelo attributed to him, and said the student may have misunderstood him because of his poor English skills. He said he took the flag from Camelo after Camelo had been waving it in the school gym, and denied withholding it later.
"I had to confiscate it so it wouldn't escalate any problems in class," Straatman told The Times-News. "We're worried about that stuff all the time. We always have kids saying stuff to each other, and we have a lot of fights between kids."
And my comment following the article:
I wonder what happens to the reconquistas that tear down US flags and run up Mexican flags on public property?
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