Cal State Long Beach says social media reports about knife incident are wrong

A posting on the Cal State Long Beach president’s webpage says recent social media discussions about the race of the male student who brandished a knife in a sociology class are wrong – the student is African American and white.

The student, whose name has not been released by the university due to the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, gave the university permission to release the information, which it posted late Monday.

“Social media accounts contain significantly incorrect information,” the university said. “Accounts of the incident relayed through social media by those unaware of the specifics have portrayed that a white male was involved in the incident. This is inaccurate. The student in question comes from a mixed race family – one parent is African American and the other is Caucasian.

“The student has authorized the release of this information to clear up ongoing misconceptions about the incident,” the university said.

CSULB police initially conducted the investigation of the Feb. 25 incident, but on Feb. 29, the case was tued over to Long Beach police due to a potential conflict of interest. The student who pulled the knife is a relative of a campus police employee, said Marlene Arrona, a spokeswoman with Long Beach police.

The LBPD investigation is ongoing.

An earlier version of the university statement incorrectly posted that the Long Beach City Attoey also was investigating the incident, said campus spokesman Michael Uhlenkamp.

Last week, the NAACP said it had launched its own investigation of the incident.

More to come.