After videos went viral on social media over the weekend of a Menlo-Atherton High School student being pinned down by police near the Atherton school's campus and arrested on Friday, April 28, afternoon, the Menlo-Atherton Black Student Union is planning a demonstration for 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3. Police also released a statement on Wednesday defending their officers' use of force and providing further context about the incident.

There will be a short march, followed by speeches outside of the B5 wing at the school located at 555 Middlefield Road. At least a couple hundred people are expected to attend, according to the BSU's advisor Chloe Gentile-Montgomery, an ethnic studies and U.S. history teacher at M-A. BSUs from other local school campuses plan to be there too, she said.

"Students were really upset about it and wanted to do something," Gentile-Montgomery said. "(The club) has its own group chat and they were really adamant about having a protest and speaking out against police brutality."

She said she found out about the incident on Saturday after a colleague sent her the video. She recognized a few students in the background.

"I felt really disgusted, disturbed, upset," she said. "I was really disappointed the cops were called at all on a Black student. This is what we expect (to happen) when cops are called on Black boys. It's representative of a larger issue at the school — very few staff are trained on de-escalation."

She said her students said that the video is also representative of how people of color are treated by police from Atherton, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.

"We demand accountability and transparency from the Atherton Police Department, and we urge them to take immediate steps to address their excessive use of force," the group said in a press release. "We also call on our school administration to take a strong stance against police brutality and work with students to create safer and more equitable learning environments."

The student newspaper, the M-A Chronicle, interviewed witnesses, including the sibling of the student who was pinned to the ground and taken into custody at a bus stop at Middlefield Road and Oak Grove Avenue around 3:30 p.m. on Friday. The sibling told the Chronicle that their brother was injured during the incident. Police said the student was transported to the Atherton Police Department and later released to a guardian.

Atherton police said in a Wednesday, May 3, news bulletin that school officials took a water gun away from the student earlier in the week and he was in the school office asking for the water gun to be returned.

"The student then physically assaulted a school administrator by pushing them into a cubicle wall, tried to push the administrator's glasses off their face, spit on them, and called them derogatory homophobic slurs," according to police. Police received several 911 calls about the incident in the office, police said.

Prior to officers' arrival, the student left the campus and went to a bus stop in the 500 block of Middlefield Road, police said.

"When officers arrived on scene, they located the student in a crowd of people at the bus stop," the bulletin states. "Rather than cooperate with the officer's directives that he was being detained, the student refused to comply and instead started backing away. An officer tried to grab the student's arm to prevent him from leaving but was only able to grab the front of his shirt. The student continued to pull away from the officer’s hold on his shirt and fell to the ground. Once on the ground, officers rolled the student onto his stomach and placed him into handcuffs. Officers used the least amount of force to detain the student."

Atherton police told The Almanac earlier in the week that the encounter is under administrative review.

Police said that the Juvenile District Attorney's Office will be reviewing this case for charges against the student for threatening a school official, a hate crime, battery on a school official and assault.

Police ask anyone who may have witnessed or has video of this incident is asked to contact the Atherton Police Department Detective Bureau at detectivebureau@ci.atherton.ca.us or upload digital files to athertonpd.evidence.com/axon/community-request/public/middlefield.

The BSU also started a change.org petition called "End Police Brutality in Sequoia Union High School District" that as of the morning of May 3 has garnered over 400 signatures.

More information on the protest can be found here.