Ex-Mansfield school worker alleges her Facebook account was hacked with racist post
Arlington police confirmed Thursday that a woman who resigned from the Mansfield school district when confronted with racist material discovered on her social media has filed a report alleging that her Facebook account had been hacked.
The case has been assigned to an investigator, who sent a search warrant to Facebook for data related to the account, Arlington police said.
The data could take up to a month to get back to investigators, police said.
The woman, Angela Brooke Hurt, has allowed detectives access to her Facebook account as part of the investigation, police said. Hurt couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Hurt is a member of The Vine Fellowship Church, whose website has been restricted because of the controversy surrounding the post, a statement on the church website says.
The church’s leadership and membership are convinced Hurt did not make the post and conducted their own inquiry, the church statement says.
“We found two compelling pieces of evidence that convinced us that her account was most definitely hacked, and that the racist post on her page was written by the person who hacked into her account,” the statement says. “As a congregation, we fully stand behind Brooke as a person who has never demonstrated racist attitudes in word or deed, and the evidence we found undergirds our support for her.
“This information was immediately given to the Arlington Police Department, who considered the evidence persuasive enough to launch an investigation to find the person who hacked Brooke’s account and wrote the racist post,” the church’s statement says.
Hurt resigned from her job as a school secretary on June 12 after Mansfield school district officials received word that a post she allegedly made on Facebook called Black people “monkeys” and said if they did not like it they should “go back to Africa.”
Mansfield Independent School District was made aware last week of a post on Hurt’s Facebook page, “which had racist and extremely inappropriate language,” Mansfield schools spokesman Donald Williams said in a written statement.
“The district does not tolerate any type of hateful speech or behavior and takes these types of situations very seriously,” the statement said. “The employee in question has since resigned and no longer works for the district.”
Screenshots of the post widely shared on social media identified the poster as Brooke Bartholomew Hurt.
Hurt began working for the school district in June 2019, and screenshots of her Facebook identified her as the secretary to the principal at James Coble Middle School. The school’s website listed the principal’s secretary as Angela Hurt.
According to the screenshots, the Facebook post said, “Loot we Shoot. Kill all those black monkeys if you don’t like it go back to Africa. #WeSupportAPD.”
The Coble Middle School Parent Teacher Association was also notified of the post and created its own post in response last week.
“The post is alarming, inappropriate, and not reflective of the values of Coble Middle School PTA,” the PTA post said. “We have forwarded the information to the School District and administration for further investigation.”
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 6:18 PM.
