Police drop case of ‘KKK’ seen at graduation

Emily Richmond

Thursday, June 29, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

UNLV Police said Wednesday they found no evidence that the words "Ku Klux Klan" were intentionally displayed on a jumbo video screen during a high school graduation earlier this month.

Because there was no apparent criminal intent, the mystery of how the name appeared on the screen has been turned over to the Clark County School District, UNLV Police Lt. Don Drake said.

Several audience members spotted the phrase on the video screen June 13 as Centennial High School students were preparing to receive their diplomas at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Experts in captioning technology say it's possible the incident was caused by someone inadvertently pressing keys on the device, thus triggering the software to recall the phrase from its library.

The School District hired Captions Unlimited, a Reno-based company, to provide services for commencement ceremonies at Thomas & Mack and the Orleans Arena.

The technician working at the Centennial event apparently left her machine unattended during a break in the proceedings, Drake said.

The other individuals in the sound booth were all longtime employees of either UNLV or the School District, Drake said.

"It's hard to imagine any of them being willing to throw away a career over something like this," Drake said.

Denise Phipps, owner of Captions Unlimited, would not identify her employee. Phipps said the woman, who has more than 16 years of experience as a court reporter and transcriptionist, was unaware the phrase had appeared on the screen until she was contacted by School District officials the next day.

The woman had created a keystroke shortcut for writing "Ku Klux Klan" that would have been unknown to others, Phipps said.

"We've done captioning for over 100 graduations without incident," Phipps said. "There's no rhyme or reason to why this happened, but we're certainly very sorry that it did."