One photo, a deluge of threats: Inside the Arizona high school turned upside down by right-wing activists

VAIL, Ariz. — Cienega High School Principal Kim Middleton woke up early last Saturday to urgent messages from district administrators.

VAIL, Ariz. — Cienega High School Principal Kim Middleton woke up early last Saturday to urgent messages from district administrators. They told her to call immediately.

A photo — in which Cienega math teachers wore matching white T-shirts on Halloween stained with red blotches and reading “Problem Solved” — was circulating rapidly online. Right-wing influencers were claiming that the educators were mocking conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Though the district quickly announced the shirts were a math joke and unrelated to Kirk, conservatives and some Republican officials from around the country amplified the image and portrayed it as a glorification of political violence. In the following days, the high school and its staff received more than 3,000 hateful messages, including dozens of death threats, and so many obscene calls that they disconnected the phones. Teachers stayed home. Sheriff’s deputies stepped up patrols on campus. Confused students asked if they were safe at school.

“They were devastated and terrified, and my kids were scared,” Middleton said. “No matter how much I say ‘We’re safe and we’re OK, I love you, we got you’ — people outside of our community who don’t know who we are and what we do terrorized us and targeted us for clicks.”

The disruption reminded Vail School District Superintendent John Carruth of a cyberattack, which the district has dealt with before.