Teens Arrested for 'KKK: Kill Katie Klub,' But Maintain They're the Victims
Two teen boys have been arrested in San Diego for their part in establishing a bullying club known as the "KKK: the Kill Katie Klub." Now their intended victim, Katie Uffens, has broken her silence, as has one of the original bullies.
The boys founded the club in order to attack fellow classmate Katie Uffens, 16. Things got so bad that Uffens eventually dropped out of the public school she was enrolled in and decided to be home-schooled. This was after Uffens and her mother went to school officials for help, but were denied.
"I didn't know if it was a joke or if they were really trying to kill me," Uffens told KGTV. Eventually, Uffens' mother started recording the voice mails the bullies would leave, as well as the online conversations exchanged.
"The kids didn't stop," Giselle Uffens told KGTV. "They kept calling us, calling us, calling us."
Finally Uffens had enough evidence to go to police with, and they took Nick Aguirre into custody. His partner has not yet been named, and neither boy has been charged with a crime.
"I [was] put in handcuffs and taken away to the police station," Aguirre stated. "Basically what I said to one of my friends was 'Kill Katie Klub.' That's all I said. It was a one-liner thing … we never had any intentions to hurt anybody."
Aguirre has maintained that in fact it was Uffers who was the bully in the situation and he was merely expressing himself in the moment, but that he never intended it to go any further.
"People don't really like her at Westview. Not because people bully her but because she's bullied people at Westview," he explained.
Authorities are taking bullying cases much more seriously in some instances after teens began hurting themselves after instances of bullying. Colorado is especially sensitive to bullying given that murderer James Holmes attended the same school as Uffers and Aguirre.
"Incidents are taken seriously and investigated," school officials said in a statement. "We work very closely with law enforcement when appropriate."